


First Impressions

by kyrieanne



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-06
Updated: 2012-01-17
Packaged: 2018-03-15 00:15:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 91,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3430841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrieanne/pseuds/kyrieanne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First impressions can be deceiving - for Ben Wyatt and Leslie Knope that is a hard earned lesson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Ben Wyatt's mother always told him not to slouch. Said it made him look like a grump and you can never get back a first impression. She also told him that once anyone gets to know him they'd love him, but he's proven many times over that that's not true.  
  
The years had proven to Ben that she was right about the first one:  you can never get back a first impression.  
  
That was a lesson he learned the hard way. But we're getting ahead of ourselves here.  
  
He isn't thinking about first impressions or impressions at all when he first rides into Pawnee. Nothing is further from his mind than what the people in this town, this last town ever, might think of him. Next to him, Chris hums along to the sound of whales crooning (could you hum to whale songs?). The man is in his own world, a smile his natural disposition, and gleefully taking in the scenery of Southern Indiana rolling past them. Ben, whose shoulder couldn't be jammed closer to the passenger side door, slumps down and stares hard out the window. Chris’ rule is whoever drove got to pick the music, and Chris always drove, another one of Chris's rules.  
  
None of it mattered because this is Ben's last assignment with Chris. It is his last assignment ever. Not that his partner knew that. Hell, their boss didn't even know. One last hellish summer spent pouring over Excel spreadsheets and listening to death threats and Ben would be free. He had hoped to quit by now, but the position on the Senator's campaign staff wouldn't be open until fall.  
  
Ben shifts in his seat. He wouldn't admit it under threat of torture, but the thought of the job in Washington, of working on a national campaign, stirred someting up in him. It was like he was five again and he was waiting for his older sister, Jenny, to come home from kindergarten so their mom could take them to the pool. He couldn't sit still. An energy took him over and he bounced a leg, picked at his shirt, and fidgeted like a boy again. Harry had promised come September 1, Ben would be settled in Washington D.C., working on the campaign, and he would be seeing Karla every day.  
  
He isn’t sure what he loved more about that picture: doing work that mattered, sharing a cup of coffee with her in the mornings, or escaping the drudgery he was doing now.  
  
To be honest, Ben hadn't been unsatisfied with his job until he'd met Karla. She was the one who prodded (pushed was more like it) him toward thinking about what was next. Out of college, he'd taken the job in Indiana because it was the furthest he could get from Minnesota without being too far from Jenny in case something ever happened...(No, he wouldn't think about that right now.)  
  
Ben stares out the fields and tries to remember how he’d gotten to this point, to the end of life as he knew it.  
  
It had been that conference a year ago where he'd met Karla. She had been doing a presentation on how local governments could streamline their tax data collection system to more easily report numbers to the federal government (yeah, it was as boring as it sounds). Afterwards, he'd stuck around to ask a question and if Ben was completely honest with himself, he hadn’t had an underlying motivation. He couldn't say he'd been struck by Karla's presence or beauty. Of course, later once they were a couple and her girlfriends asked what made him ask his question he said it was an excuse to talk to her rather than the truth: he'd simply had a question.  
  
She asked him out. Karla was nothing if not forceful and Ben found himself swept along in her fast talking, New York accent. She was pretty once you looked for it: honey colored curls she never bothered to tame and a strong aquiline nose. After they'd had sex, he realized her body was amazing: lithe and muscular. Later, after they'd started dating, he figured out it was because of her fanatical 5 a.m. workouts. And after she let him stay over for the first time, he saw her without makeup and decided she had beautiful brown eyes when she didn't gunk them up.  
  
She lived in Indianapolis and for nine months they dated long distance and it was fine. Well, Ben had thought of it as long distance because though he had an apartment, a dumpy little apartment, in Indianapolis, he really lived on the road in towns all across Indiana. They saw each other on the weekends and not even every weekend because sometimes Karla worked on Saturdays (she worked for the governor). Then, three months ago, she abruptly took a job in D.C. Ben thought it was aburpt because she called him and asked if he could help load boxes the next Saturday.  
  
Since then, though, Karla had not been happy with their arrangement. Apparently D.C. was too long of a distance. Ben had been out to visit three times and each time she became more insistent that he commit and move out to D.C. so they could be together. The hypocrisy riled him since she hadn't even mentioned her move to him until it was a sure thing and he'd thought about ending it. But then Harry had called.  
  
Harry Harlin was a long-time friend of Ben's from college who had struck out for D.C. right after graduation (he'd wanted Ben to come with him, but Jenny had been really bad off then and he just couldn't be that far away) and clawed his way up the political ladder and now he'd landed the type of job they'd all dreamed of: cheif of staff for a rising Senator. The call came from no where and after Ben had hung up the phone, he sat in silence for a long time, staring at the floor. It was as if whatever powers that might be were aligning everything for his life to be in D.C: girlfriend, dream job, friends all waiting for him out there.  
  
So now all he had to do was get through one last summer, one last assignment, in Pawnee and then he would be on to bigger and better things.  
  
***  
  
The Parks and Recreation department is the last department they get to. It is at the bottom of Pawnee's organizational chart and Ben might have opted out of the meeting if Chris wasn't Chris and demand each department be given equal attention. Ben is still trying to wrap his mind around the racists murals that line the halls when Chris stops short and points to the double doors for the department with a grin. They can hear two people shouting from the hall.  
  
It is the woman Ben hears first. To say she sounded upset is an understatement. She slammed something down on the floor, "They're state auditors, Ron, they're here to slash and burn!"  
  
"Leslie, they're from the governor's office. They outrank all of us. There is nothing we can do." This came from a man who, Ben thought, sounded like a provoked bear.  
  
"You're just going to roll over like that? Quitting is for losers. Do you want to be a loser, Ron?"  
  
Ben tips his eyebrows up. He remembers from their agenda that Ron Swanson is the director of the department. Leslie Knope is the deputy director and from what he is hearing now, a real pain-in-the-ass.  
  
"You're not going to get yourself fired over this Leslie,"  Ron quieted, "You hear me?"  
  
Whatever her response was, Ben doesn't hear it. Chris looks at him with a grin, "Sounds like they're expecting us!"  
  
It takes everything Ben has in him not to roll his eyes.  
  
Years later she would ask him what he thought when he saw her for the first time and he honestly had to answer, nothing. It’s not that he didn’t notice her or had been occupied with other thoughts. The truth is he had no thoughts. Instead, he'd gone blank: utterly and entirely empty. Coherency would have been impossible had he tried to form words and the lurch in his stomach when he saw her, the turning over and inside out, wasn’t describable. He couldn’t have told you what it was, if he had even admitted it. It wasn’t desire, not really, but something akin to fascination.  
  
Her displeasure is evident; it practically radiates off her in waves. Chris is talking to Ron Swanson, doing that thing where he points and says the person’s name, but Ben isn’t paying attention. He watches her, he assumes she is Leslie Knope, from the corner of his eye. She is sulking against the wall. Her arms are folded over her chest and she glares at him so hard that he looks behind him to see if it couldn’t be somebody else. Her blond hair and bright blue eyes do not match her demeanor. He swallows hard.  
  
How did someone so small pack such a suker punch to the gut?  
  
Ben skews his eyes downward, looks away, and folds himself over his briefcase. Whoever she was, she wasn’t any different than a hundred other glowering faces in the corner. He’d dealt with more formidable opponents than Leslie Knope. Still, Ben couldn’t help his eyes wandering in her direction, tripping over her face.  
  
***  
  
Chris abandons Ben with Leslie Knope to go out with Ron Swanson for a whiskey.  
  
They settle across the conference table from each other. She sits ramrod straight and stares at him.  
  
Ben exhales, “Let’s talk about where you think there is waste in your department.”  
  
“There is none.”  
  
“There obviously is because your city is on the brink of a shutdown,” Ben tips his head. She doesn’t blink, “Listen, you may not get this but the reality is -,”  
  
“I don’t think you get it,” she points at him, “these are real people in a real town, in a real building with real feelings.”  
  
Ben can’t help himself, “The building has feelings?”  
  
It doesn’t help. She pushes back from the table and stands up, “You’re a jerk and I don’t mean you’re being a jerk. I mean you’re a jerk. A stupid, jerk who doesn’t care about people and thinks you can just ruin people’s lives and it doesn’t matter. It’s irresponsible and thoughtless.”  
  
He’s at a distinct disadvantage sitting down so he pushes back his chair and stands too, “It’s your government that is irresponsible and thoughtless, Ms. Knope. We did not make this mess. We came here to fix it and save your town.”  
  
“Ohhhh, why don’t we throw you a parade!” she wraps her arms around her stomach and Ben has the thought that she doesn’t look mad as much as scared, but he pushes it away.  
  
“You obviously need us whether you want us or not.”  
  
“We don’t need you,” she snorts.  
  
“Who is going to fix this if we don’t? You?”  
  
“What makes you think I can’t fix it? You don’t even know me.”  
  
Ben digs and finds his file, “Why can’t you fix it? Let’s see: Camp Athena, Lot 48, Christmas Follies, penguin weddings, and the list goes on from there. Ms. Knope you are what we call a drain. You spend money with no thought to where it comes from and the fact that it isn’t limitless. Your recklessness and  inability to conserve has crippled your town and if you don’t cooperate with us you will be the ruin of your town.”  
  
Ben isn’t sure why, but by the time he finishes his muscles are taunt, he stands up straight, and his whole body feels awake.  He’s not sure where all of that came from. He’s never been that alive when talking about his job. Across the table, his speech has had the opposite affect on Leslie Knope. She does not move. Her eyes are wide and her mouth has formed a perfect little O. For some ridiculous reason he has the urge to lean across the table and with two fingers under her chin, close her lips.  
  
But the moment is fleeting because she sets her mouth on a hardline.  
  
“You see those programs and call it recklessness, but we call it dreaming big and providing services for people,” She is visibly shaking and Ben feels regret curdle in his stomach, “You are the one who is reckless. You treat people like numbers as if government is just a matter of balancing a budget and people’s lives are just a factor in an equation. That is irresponsible. That is inhuman and I don’t know how you sleep at night…”  
  
She had gotten to the end of her speech, trailing off at the end as if she wasn’t quite sure how to finish. Ben narrows his eyes. She looks away from him, distressed evident on her face, and he wonders if fighting doesn’t make her terribly uncomfortable.  
  
“I think I can get what I need from your spreadsheets,” he says it quietly.  
  
“I’ll email them to you,” she won’t look at him.  
  
He starts toward the door, thinks of his sister, stops, and almost turns around, but he can hear her gathering up her things and from the corner of his eye he can see her in his peripheral vision, hunched shoulders, and decides against it.  
  
***  
  
His hotel is just as depressing as you’d expect for a government gig. He falls onto the bed, one leg hanging off the side, and kicks off his shoes. He rubs his temples and for a moment just lets the silence sink down into him.  
  
This was going to be a long summer.  
  
He can’t help but it but his last picture of Leslie Knope is stamped on the forefront of his mind. Her eyes sad and embarrassed.  
  
Arghhh.  
  
He flips over onto his stomach and breathes into the polyester comforter. This wasn’t his fault. Why couldn’t anyone see that?  
  
He isn’t sure why, but he pulls his phone out and calls Jenny. Later, he’ll wonder why he called Jenny rather than Karla. Karla would have said all the things he wanted to hear, “They’re small minded if they can’t see the facts.”  
  
Instead, he calls Jenny who really has no sympathy for him.  
  
“Did you smile?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Did you smile even once?”  
  
“I…I don’t know.”  
  
She blows a long breath, “Ben, how hard is it to smile when you tell people you’re going to fire them?”  
  
“I don’t actually fire people. I advise their supervisors on the fiscally respons-,”  
  
“That’s bullshit. People are scared and will do whatever you tell them. You fire people.”  
  
He rubs a hand over his face, “I don’t really need this today, Jen.”  
  
“That’s why I asked if you smiled.”  
  
“I don’t get what smiling has to do with anything.”  
  
“Because you can be Mean Ben when you don’t smile and it scares people even more,” she says. Her breath is labored and Ben sits up straighter. He wonders if she walking the dog or chasing after one of her girlfriend’s babies or some other thing that would cause her breath to be short or if she’s having a bad day. But she cuts him off before he can ask, “What happened then?”  
  
“Nothing,” he closes his eyes and tried to push the image of Leslie Knope from his mind.  
  
“Something had to have happened because you never call me like this and I’d bet you have a dozen days like this a month, right?” she said, “So who is she?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“It’s always the women who get to you. The ones you like. What’s her name?”  
  
“Forget it Jenny. I’ll call Karla.” He says it in a rush and it worked. Jenny quiets. Ben knew she didn’t like Karla, thought she was too angular for him (he isn’t sure what that means).  
  
“Listen Ben,” she is using that tone that is only for him and it makes him smile, “you don’t have to be that person, Mean Ben. You’re Benji, my baby brother. The one who used to give me the last bite of birthday cake and skipped his senior prom to sit with me in the hospital. You are freaking kid-mayor. You called me because you needed someone to remind you that you’re still that same person no matter how many people yell at you. You do care and its not weakness to let people see that.”  
  
“I love you, Jenny,” Ben murmurs.  
  
“You’d better cause I’m all you got.” She laughs, “Now go make amends to this girl and leave me be. I’ve got a very busy Friday night. I’m dying my roots.”  
  
Ben laughs and hangs up the phone. He remembers an invitation to a local dive bar, the Snakehole Lounge, for a birthday party (he couldn’t tell you whose) and he wonders if Leslie Knope might be there.  
  
***  
  
Leslie Knope is more than a little drunk. She tries to count the bottles of beer on the table in front of her but they all look the same. Soon she forgets which she’s counted and starts turning them upside down to keep track. Some of them still have beer in them and Leslie’s not sure if any of them are hers or not.  
  
Ann appears at her elbow, bouncing to the rhythm of the music, “Come on and dance!” She has to shout.  
  
Leslie shakes her head. She’s drunk, but she hasn’t forgotten why she’s drunk. Ben Wyatt. Facist, tard ass Ben Wyatt. The state auditor who thought he was too good for Pawnee and talked to her like she was stupid. He is going to fire her friends, burn down the parks, and ruin Pawnee if she doesn’t stop him. And she was going to think of a way to stop him as soon as the floor stops switching places with the ceiling.  
  
“Wanna get drunk?” Ann tries again.  
  
Leslie shakes her head, “Already there.”  
  
Ann frowns and those worried lines she gets on her forehead come out again. She pats Leslie’s head awkwardly (she’s had a little to drink too), “How are we going to fix this?”  
  
“I doon’t know,” Leslie hiccups, “I th-think we might need to riot. I’m going to check the - what are they called, those things where we write things that are official cause they happened?”  
  
“History books?”  
  
“Yes!” Leslie points two fingers at Ann, “I’m going to check the history books and see if it doesn’t break city code to run them out of town.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
“The state auditors,” Leslie’s eyes grow wide, “Uh oh!”  
  
“What?”  
  
“They’re here.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
“Them,” she whispers and points so obviously that Chris Traeger thinks she’s waving at them. At his heels is the tard-ass one, Ben. She wishes his face wasn’t so terrible to look at.  
  
She steadies herself on the table and considers for a moment that she might have mixed up a word in that thought, but everything is fuddled.  
  
“Leslie Knope, this is the best birthday party I’ve ever been too. Everyone is so enthusiastic.” Chris exclaimes.  
  
Ann nudges Leslie with her elbow and Leslie nudges back. She’s not sure why now Ann is trying to initiate a game, but she’ll play.  
  
Finally, Ann gives Leslie the stink eye and sticks out her hand, “I”m Ann Perkins. Leslie’s best friend.”  
  
She doesn’t know why, but Leslie is watching Ben to see if he is admiring Ann. Everyone admires Ann. He doesn’t seem to notice and she thinks she should be mad because Ann is beautiful. Everyone knows that. Instead, he’s staring at her, chin tucked into his chest and eyes turned upward like he’s surveying very carefully the path in front of him.  
  
Uncomfortable, she shifts from foot to foot.  
  
Chris’s face splits into a grin as Ann talks to him (There are too many words right now for her to follow) and quickly her best friend is leading him to the bar to get a drink and abandons Leslie with Ben. His hands are stuffed into his pockets and he’s wearing a untucked button down and jeans. He looks normal and Leslie almost tells him that but she can’t remember if that would be a proper thing to say so she holds out her hand like a lady would (Because that’s proper) so that he may kiss it.  
  
Ben seems confused about the proper etiquette because he awkwardly takes it and ducks his head, “Hi.”  
  
“What are you doing here?” she withdraws her hand and frowns.  
  
“I think we might have gotten off on the wrong foot,” he says, “I came by to apologize for what I said earlier.”  
  
If Leslie wasn’t drunk, she thinks, he might be making more sense, but she’s had a lot of pink fruity drinks. Facist, tard asses do not apologize. They ruin lives and jobs.  
  
“Well, don’t okay,” Leslie is shouting and she’s not quite sure why except he’s not following the rules. He’s supposed to be mean and try to fire everyone she knew and she is supposed to think of something really great, outsmart him, and save the Parks department. But she can’t do that if he apologized and ended up being, you know, a human being, “Cause I’ve talked to everyone here and no one wants you here.”  
  
“You’ve talked to every person in this bar?”  
  
“Yes because I am having a good time with my friends and they are my friends so just leave.”  
  
Ben ducks his head further, “Alright, sorry.”  
  
Instantly, she feels pangs of regret because he looks so embarrassed, but that makes her even more mad. How dare he be sympathetic and nice! It had to be a trick, Leslie is sure of it, to lull her into some false sense of security. He must think she’s really stupid. “Good leave. Leave now. There is no room in here for mean, stupid faced people!”  
  
He backs away and is gone before everything clears in Leslie head a little more and she gets the distinct impression she should feel bad.  
  
***  
  
Ben’s face burns and he gets half a block before he remembers he’d driven with Chris.  
  
Great, Chris of course found the nice girl while Ben kept getting stuck with Leslie Knope, pain-in-his-ass. Any pity or generosity he’d felt toward her earlier in the evening has been replaced with fury, a trembling kind that scares Ben a little. He hadn’t been this upset since…well, if he was honest he can’t remember exactly.  
  
She’d embarrassed him.  
  
He’d been mocked, yelled at, and threatened by people in dozens of towns across Indiana but he couldn’t remember the last time it’d mattered to him, that he let someone get to him like this.  
  
He shoved his hands into his pockets and kicked a pebble skipping across the parking lot. God, he hated this so much. All of it, he was tired of it. Why couldn’t Pawnee just… he didn’t know what he wanted, but he knew this wasn’t it.  
  
And Leslie Knope.  
  
What was her problem?  
  
He had half-a-mind to march back in there and tell her he didn’t do this, that he could care less about her department or her town, and a thousand other things he had no business telling her: that he took this job hoping to help and even though people couldn’t see that he still believed it did help even if he hated it a little, that he was sorry, and that he wanted something more in his life but he wasn’t sure what. There was no reason for it, but he wanted to explain himself to her. He didn’t expect her to understand; she was obviously too thick headed to listen. He stood there and actually contemplated walking back into the bar. He wouldn’t wait for her to say anything, but just start talking and she would listen because he’d make her listen and then…  
  
Shit.  
  
What was his problem?  
  
He rakes a hand through his hair, groans, and stands still for a long time.  
  
His cell phone buzzes and when he sees it is Karla something drops in his stomach.  
  
“You would never believe this place I’m in…”  
  
***  
  
Leslie Knope knew something about eating crow.  
  
She also knew something of being hungover, but nothing made either experience any easier the next morning.  
  
She’d woken up on her stairs, curled up like a cat around one of those foam fingers. She’d called Ann to find out what had happened, but Ann had answered with a low hiss, “I’m fine. You on the other hand are not. You sang Lady Gaga from on top of the bar last night.”  
  
“Did I really?”  
  
“Yeah, and then after that you started crying something about fascist robots becoming human. Ron finally took you home.”  
  
“Ann, do you have any green tea?” This didn’t come from Leslie, but a distinctly male voice in Ann’s bedroom.  
  
“Um, yeah,” Ann covered the phone with her hand and for a moment Leslie sat there trying to figure out who would be there. The only face she could remember from last night was Ben Wyatt and it made her sick the idea of them…ugh.  
  
“Who is that? Ann Perkins…”  
  
“Leslie you’re shouting.”  
  
“I’m sorry. Everything is very fuzzy right now.”  
  
“Chris. Chris Traeger spent the night...”  
  
“Ben’s boss?”  
  
“Yeah, I guess if that’s how you want to think of him…”  
  
Ann had to go after that and Leslie found her way to the bathroom (she threw up in the shower).  
  
Everything about last night was fuzzy. It isn’t until she is brushing her teeth that Leslie remembers yelling at Ben. His face, how he kicked his toe at the floor, and her words run on repeat in her mind all the way to City Hall and through their morning meeting. Ron pulls her aside and yells at her for fighting with Ben, for taking such a dumb risk, and she just wants crawl into the cubby beneath her desk and go to sleep. She presses her palms into her eyes and tries to clear her head. Yeah, she probably shouldn’t have done that, but she didn’t owe him anything. Still, he’d come to apologize and as annoyed as she was at him for not being the terrible person she thought he was, she had to admit she’d been horrible to him.  
  
“I hate this,” Leslie mutters and hits her head against her palm before realizing that is a terrible mistake, “Ouch.”  
  
***  
  
Ben stays focused on what is in front of him when she walks in. He refuses to look up and hoped that she’d just leave without talking to him, hoped in a way that he wasn’t sure if he really meant it. The thought of last night still caused him to flush and what bothered him the most was that he couldn’t quite bring himself to write her off, to stop thinking about her, and wondering about what she thought of him. So he hopes on a breath and a prayer that she will turn around and walk out of his office because he needed to concentrate this morning. That’s why Karla told him to do: keep his head done, do his job, and get out. But Leslie seems intent on talking to him because then she is standing in front of him and apologizing.  
  
“Don’t worry about it,” he doesn’t look up.  
  
She sighs, “I realize you hold my fate in your hands like a tiny bird, but I don’t think you understand -,”  
  
“No, I don’t think you understand,” Ben can’t help himself, “I didn’t cause this. Your government did.”  
  
She closes her eyes, “Can you just listen?” When he stops talking she continues, “I know we’re in a mess, but I don’t think you understand that these are real people’s lives and this is their community. You can’t do you job if you don’t know that.”  
  
He tilts his head and looks at her. She must have the world’s worst hang over, but she’s standing before him with an impassioned speech on the tip of her tongue.  
  
“Do you want to get a beer?”  
  
***  
  
Leslie’s not sure why he asks her out for a beer at 10:30 a.m., but she has to admit it hits the spot. They’re sitting at the corner of the bar now. He takes a long drink of his beer and she grasps hers with two hands.  
  
“Feel better?”  
  
She nods.  
  
His lips twitch and he looks straight ahead, “Good.”  
  
They lapse into a silence and she takes the chance to look at him. His hair falls over his forehead and it makes him look young, almost boyish. He’s not terrible, face wise, she decides. His eyes are guarded, but she thinks there might be the hint of something softer beneath the surface.  
  
She sits up straighter because she shouldn’t be noticing things like that, the details that make up a person, because she is sure he’d still sell her down the river if it meant a balanced budget.  
  
“Have you ever worked in government?” she asks.  
  
He stills, caught a little off guard, and she can see him internally mulling over what to say.  
  
“Yeah, in a town called Partridge, Minnesota,” he says. He tells her about Ice Town and as he does, Leslie can’t help but decide she likes him. She isn’t sure she trusts him, but there is something endearing about him and when he points to her and says, “You want to run for office some day, right?” it catches her off guard because no one, not even Ron, has ever asked her about that.  
  
And when he is done talking about it, his eyes flicker toward her, almost hesitant in their gaze, as if to ask: is it safe?   
  
“So, you don’t hate me?” he asks.  
  
She narrows her eyes, “Are you going to fire all my friends?”  
  
“Technically, I can’t fire anybody.”  
  
“You know what I mean.”  
  
He pushed the coaster with two fingers, “I can’t make promises. I’m just here to do my job.”  
  
“Why do you do it if you hate it?”  
  
He chews on his bottom lip, considering his words again, and Leslie wonders if he was always like this, so careful, and if not, what happened to make him so reserved.  
  
“I don’t hate it,” Its said like a confession and Leslie leans in. He’s playing with the coaster, flipping it with his fingers, and looking at the worn grain of the bar, “I actually think what I do is important even if no one else does.”  
  
“I think its important too,” she says it quietly, “I just think you’re-,”  
  
“Irreverent?”  
  
“Yeah, that might be a good way to put it.”  
  
“You’re not going to believe me Leslie, but after the first twenty or so towns you realize that they all are the same. Everyone has families and feelings, but they also don’t want to take responsibility and instead they blame me.”  
  
“Pawnee’s special,” she shakes her head.  
  
“No, Pawnee’s not special.”  
  
She sits back and surveys him. He’s looking down again, clearly uncomfortable.  
  
She sighs, “It is special, but I can understand why you don’t see that yet.”  
  
“You really must think I’m kind of slow because that’s the second time you’ve said that this morning.”  
  
“I do think you’re kind of slow,” she says and then lets out a breath, “But I can see why you are the way you are.”  
  
“And how am I?” He is looking straight at her now and for the first time their eyes meet, steady, and hold for a beat.  
  
Leslie swallows and breaks the eye contact because it was just too much. She can’t be doing that.  
  
“Um, I think you’re kind of a jerk, but I think you could be really great too,” she says. It brings a smile out in him that makes her blush, but because that feels dangerous and thrilling at the same time she follows-up with, “Really though that could just be the beer.”  
  
***  
  
Ben couldn’t really tell you why he drove to Eagleton to find Freddy Spaghetti, but he does and he pulls out his cell phone to call Karla and tell her about it, but he hesitates. For some reason he doesn’t think she’d approve (Not your job…) so he calls Jenny.  
  
“Why’d you do it?” She is in her garden. Ben can tell because he can hear her wind chimes and he knows it is sunny today in Partridge (He has the weather updates programmed into his phone).  
  
“I want the kids to have their concert.”  
  
“I don’t mean to sound cynical, but I’m calling bullshit on this one.”  
  
He laughs, hopes it covers up his discomfort, “I’m disappointed you think so little of me…”  
  
“No, I just know you. Who is she?”  
  
“There isn’t a she,” Ben tugs at the collar of his shirt.  
  
“Fine,” she says, “you don’t have to tell me now, but its just a matter of time. I have many sophisticated techniques of finding out the truth.”  
  
“Whatever,” Ben laughs and hangs-up while Jenny is still listing her many skills.  
  
 ***  
  
Ben isn’t sure when he begins to like Pawnee, but it happens slowly.  
  
His days are spent inside the office he shares with Chris, pouring over budgets and revenue reports, but he likes the work. He thinks of it like a riddle in a fairy tale: if you guess wisely the sphinx will stand aside and let you pass. If he could get this right then…well he always trailed off when he thought about what he is trying to get too. Nothing is riding on the work he does here; he is going to quit and move to D.C. in just a few months. Still, Ben finds himself unusually immersed in the budget and even excited on the mornings of the next Emergency Budget Task Force meetings. For the first time in a long time, he finds it harder to think of the people and programs as numbers. There are the intangibles that you can’t account for like childhood and community and joy and he keeps trying to save the things he think will foster those things. Before Pawnee, most of his time was spent eliminating waste and identifying ways to cut back, but now those things didn’t seem like enough. Who was to say they wouldn’t face a budget crisis again? And Ben wouldn’t be there to help them. He would be in D.C. and…  
  
He stops there because he knows it is ridiculous. He tells himself he just wants to go out well; he wants to impress his boss and do good by the system that has been his life for so many years. He finds himself scribbling new ideas down during meetings, new bus routes and recycling policies that might make Pawnee better. He knows if he could just figure out the linchpin in the budget, the thing that would cut costs and bring in revenue, that Pawnee would be alright.  
  
Not that its all pleasant.  
  
Joe from Sewage gives him hell when he says no to a new waste filtration system and the council isn’t happy when he recommends they take a voluntary pay cut in order to not cut teachers. There are the death threats, the ‘mistakes’ on his to-go orders from JJ’s, and someone keys his car (doesn’t matter to him, it belongs to the state). Chris still makes him play the bad guy, but that means that no one invites Ben to dinner or parties. He is comfortably allowed to be left alone.  
  
That is except for Leslie Knope.  
  
Ron made Leslie the official representative on the Emergency Budget Task Force and she’d been the pain-in-his-ass he’d expected, but Ben would be lying if he didn’t admit he liked the challenge. Her enthusiasm gave life to the meetings that wasn’t there before (okay, Ron’s enthusiasm was equal in intensity, but different in tenor) and she rallied her peers whenever she could to support her ideas. Often times they were impossible ideas (no, Pawnee cannot afford a monorail system) and she tried every level of his patience (no, you cannot schedule another meeting), but Ben often found himself thinking, “If only more people were like Leslie Knope…” more than he cared to admit.  
  
In the end, it was her unflinching tenacity that gave Ben his great idea, that linchpin he’d been trying to find.  
  
She was the linchpin.  
  
Leslie wanted to talk to him about Lot 48 to which Ben had repeatedly said no. There would be no discussion of new expenditures until after they’d gotten the budget under control, but Leslie didn’t consider Lot 48 a new expenditure. It’d been left sitting for far too long and had been built into the Parks budget for the next fiscal year and if only Ben would listen…  
  
But he wouldn’t listen. He refused to meet with her outside the Emergency Budget Task Force meetings and didn’t return her phone calls or repeated emails. He told her no one got preferential treatment, but what he was really doing was avoiding her. She fascinated him in a way that he didn’t like. Her exuberance was addicting and it was after long discussions with her (usually at the end of Emergency Budget Task Force meetings until it was just the two of them in the conference room arguing over some point and the janitor has to come tell them to leave…) that he starts doodling ways to save Pawnee in his padfolio. She is dangerous, a distraction to his real life which had nothing to do with Pawnee.  
  
So Leslie showed up at his hotel room.  
  
He is watching a baseball game, eating cold leftover pizza, and pouring over the education budget, trying to find ways to cut expenses without diminishing the future for Pawnee’s youngest (when did he start thinking of them like that?) when there is a sharp, insistent knocking at his door.  
  
He sat there for a full minute trying to figure out who it might be. Chris is the only one who ever came to his room, but Chris is on a date with Ann that night and Ben had the wild idea that it might be Karla here to surprise him. But Karla wouldn’t never knock like that and Ben shouldn’t have been surprised when he opened the door and it is Leslie Knope staring at him with round, blue eyes and slightly out-of-breath like she’d ran here or something.  
  
“What are you doing here?”  
  
She pushes past him into the room, “I’m here because you won’t talk to me. Is this where you live?”  
  
“Um, yes.” Ben closes the door, thinks, and then opens it back up. He has no desire to be stuck in closed room, alone, with Leslie Knope. Nothing good could come of that.  
  
“It’s depressing.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“Then why do you live here?”  
  
“It’s cheaper.”  
  
She tilts her head, “Are you one of those cheap sakes who rewash foil?”  
  
“No,” he is a little offended, “I just, its the thing,” he exhales, “Why are you here, Leslie?”  
  
She plops down on his bed, sending his papers scattering to the floor, but she doesn’t notice and Ben just stands there between her and the door with closed eyes hoping this is a dream.  
  
“I want to talk about Lot 48.”  
  
He throws his hands up, “No, I’ve told you a thousand times…”  
  
“And if you would just listen…”  
  
“That’s what you told me about the summer classes and your proposed raccoon petting zoo and a dozen other ideas you’ve had. It doesn’t matter Leslie. There is no money.” He’s crossed over and sunk down on the bed opposite his so they faced one another. Their knees are inches apart, “I don’t know what you want from me.”  
  
“I want you to find the money.”  
  
“Where?” he’s lost his temper now, “Where do you want me to find it? In the education budget or the police budget? Or I could fire Jerry? Do you want that cause that’s your only option?”  
  
A blond curl falls across her forehead and she looks hurt and Ben feels like a cad. He wants to make it better for her, but he can’t and the fact that that he would do almost anything to make her ideas possible scares him. It scares him a lot.  
  
“Can’t you find waste and…” she says slowly.  
  
“No, Leslie there is no magical solution.”  
  
She leans down and picks up one of the papers that has fallen to the floor.  
  
Ben watches her as she reads it.  
  
He already knew she was pretty; anyone could see that. What he kept finding himself doing was studying her, getting to know her expressions. Ever since he’d met her he’d been fascinated by her: this bundle of energy and optimism that was so different from himself. Now her brow is knit in concentration and her lips are moving though she isn’t saying anything. Ben knows this expression - it's Leslie thinking.  
  
“What is this?” She looks up at him.  
  
“A memo about the education budget. We’re going to have to cut 20%. I’ve made deeper cuts to other departments, but I still have too.” He shrugs.  
  
“I’m talking about these things you’ve written on here: renegotiate food contract, combine bus routes, move district offices to City Hall…” she trails off and looks up.  
  
Ben felt himself flush, “Um, they’re ideas for trying to cut the budget without hurting the kids.”  
  
“Are these your ideas?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“They’re good.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Yeah, but I’ll tell you you’re going to have a hell of a time trying to renegotiate the food contract with Sweetums. They’ve supplied the food for Pawnee’s school lunches since before I was a kid. Half the school board has family working there.”  
  
“Well, I think we could get a better deal if we sourced from farmers and local vendors. It’d be healthier too.” Ben looks at his lap.  
  
“I think its a great idea.” She says it quickly, “But the only way you’ll get it done is if you offer Sweetums something in return.”  
  
“Like what?”  
  
“They’ve been after the council to rezone so they can expand their business offices.”  
  
“Why hasn’t it happened?”  
  
She sighs and leans back on one arm, “Because Councilman Houser’s brother owns the land and he doesn’t want to sell it. He thinks there is treasure there and even though Sweetum’s has offered fair market price for it he thinks they’re just after the treasure.”  
  
“So Councilman Houser holds up the vote?”  
  
“Yeah, cause his brother saved his life once in a swimming accident and hasn’t really been right in the head since. He feels guilty.”  
  
“So what can we do for Councilman Houser to get him to vote for the rezoning?  
  
Leslie smiles a devilish grin and tips her eyebrows up, “You got more of that pizza?”  
  
They end up ordering another pizza and Ben runs down to the gas station next to his hotel for beer. They set up at the table shoved into the corner of his room, budgets spread out, each nursing a luke warm beer while the baseball game plays on in the background softly.  
  
Leslie turns out to be a fountain of information. Her knowledge about Pawnee is invaluable and Ben finds himself pulling out other department budgets to see if she has any ideas. Of course she does and while some of them are fanciful (No, we can’t train the raccoons to pick up garbage.), most of her suggestions are good. Leslie produces butcher paper from her car (You never know when you’re going to need to make a list) and they tack their plans up on the walls of his hotel room.  
  
“I think this might actually work.” Ben leans back in his chair, legs crossed at his ankles, and tips back the last of his beer.  
  
“Of course its going to work.” Leslie says. She is sitting on his bed, cross legged, chewing on the end of a marker. She’s grinning up at their plans like it were a shrine, something full of hope and promise. Ben watches her, the smooth skin of her upper arms (she lost the blazer some point after the second beer), and golden sheen of her hair. He swallows and shakes his head a little.  
  
Leslie notices and turns to look at him, her eyes settling on him, “It is going to work.”  
  
She thinks he’s not sure about their plan and he lets her think that. He smiles, “Yeah, it will.”  
  
They hold their gaze longer than two co-workers should, longer than two friends should.  
  
Is that what they were now, friends? Ben isn’t sure, but he kind of hopes it’s true.  
  
He needed her to look away if he was going to get through this without doing something incredibly stupid. Something needed to happen because he hadn’t drawn a breath since she met his eye and this-whatever-it-is between them was growing. She scoots forward on the bed, but that didn’t break the tension because she is still looking at him and Ben’s brain can’t form full thoughts. This was going to happen…  
  
And then his phone rang.  
  
They both jump and look sheepishly at each other.  
  
Ben closes his eyes. He knows from the ring it is Karla. Never before did he realize that her ring tone (she picked it out and put it on his phone for him) was so shrill.  
  
“I should go,” Leslie stands up.  
  
“Yeah.” Ben stood too.  
  
“You can get that. I’ll see myself out,” she arches an eyebrow and looks at his caller id, “You don’t want to keep Karla waiting.”  
  
“Yeah, um, bye. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He shakes his head.  
  
He knows he’s making it up, but he thinks Leslie looks wistful, “Yeah, tomorrow.”  
  
He walks her to the door, waves as she steps out into the hallway, closes it, and drops his head against it as he answers Karla’s insistent second phone call, “Yeah…”


	2. Chapter 2

“Leslie, were you listening? Hello, Leslie…”  
  
Ann raps her knuckles on Leslie’s desk and it sends her jumping out of her seat.  
  
“Yes, at attention, Sir or Madame…I’m here.”  
  
Ann tilts her head to the side.  
  
“What are you doing here?”  
  
They both look around the darkened, empty Parks offices.  
  
“Working.” Leslie twirls a highlighter on her desk, “what are you doing?”  
  
“Going to the cookout that you talked me into hosting.” Ann reaches out for Leslie’s arm, but she pulls away.  
  
“I’ve got to finish these reports.”  
  
“Leslie,” the way Ann says her name makes Leslie balk, “It’s five o’clock on a Friday night. It’s summer. And the city is shut down. You’re not even allowed in here!”  
  
“How’d you get in here?”  
  
“I bribed a security guard. When you weren’t at home, I knew you’d be here,” Ann takes a breath and realizes what Leslie had actually said, “And what reports could you have? You haven’t been to the office in a month!”  
  
Leslie flushes, “They’re extra credit.”  
  
But Ann is faster and she grabs the nearest pile of papers (a rough draft of a streamlined budget plan for the police department from Ben). Leslie tries to wrestle them from her, but Ann cocks her head and puts up a finger, “Don’t,” and Leslie stills. Ann reads and reads again. Her eyes criss-cross which makes sense. Ben uses a lot of numbers. It took Leslie a while to get used to too.  
  
Leslie can’t stand the silence, “It’s not what it looks like. It’s just a few thoughts on a few proposals that’ve come through the EBTF…”  
  
“EBTF?”  
  
“Emergency Budget Task Force. Keep up, Ann,” Leslie wrings her hands, “He asked for my advice. It’s like studying together, that’s all.”  
  
Ann peers across her desk, “Sanitation. Education. Police. Emergency Services. Health. Judicial. Records. Leslie, there are budgets for every department in the city.”  
  
“It’s a big final.” Leslie blurts out, but realizes the metaphor had died, “I’m helping him. I like to help.” She finishes lamely.  
  
“I thought you hated him. I thought he was a fascist.”  
  
“He is a fascist. He’d cut everything if I wasn’t there to help him. I have to do this, Ann.”  
  
There is a roll of the eyes.  
  
“It’s very interesting and rewarding work.”  
  
Trying again.  
  
“I am doing it for Pawnee.”  
  
“Are you sleeping with him?”  
  
“Ick, ewww. Ann, have you seen him, face-wise?” Leslie scrunches up her nose, “I mean he’s not terrible, but he’s so skinny and pale and wears those ties. He’s no Chris Traeger…”  
  
“Yeah, he’s not…” Ann sighed a little, “But don’t think I’m that easily distracted. Is Ben Wyatt why you missed Tom’s launch party a few weeks ago?”  
  
“It was his re-launch party and I went to the first one.” Leslie mutters.  
  
Dots begin to connect for Ann as her voice rises, “You ditched me at Ron’s whittling party and now I have cedar shavings all over my house which smells good but it’s messy. Then there was that singles event Donna talked us into and I went because you begged me to be your wingman and I’m not even single. There was the Anne of Green Gables marathon and…” she sucks in a breath, “And Jerry’s dinner party. You left me at Jerry’s dinner party. Do you know how many kinds of jello salad I had to eat?”  
  
Leslie flinches at every accusation. Technically she wasn’t with Ben for everyone of those things. They’d only met twice since that first time, in his hotel room, but she didn’t think Ann cared about that. And she really didn’t want to admit to being in his hotel room. She’d missed those things because she really did have to work. She was working on these budgets, but it wasn’t because of Ben Wyatt.  
  
Well, not entirely but that is a voice Leslie kept very much to herself and most of the time denied entirely.  
  
She liked the work.  
  
Not the numbers. God, she hated the numbers. But the creating and taking away, the positioning and repositioning possibilities to see how the details went together so the whole picture made sense, that she loved. And she was good at it. Ben had said it more than once, usually with an arched eyebrow and reluctant smile. More so, she knew she was good at it. She knew it deep down in her bones where the thought rattled, knocking on her ribs at night telling her You should be doing this and when she woke up in the morning she would realize it was just her heart beating.  
  
It’d taken Leslie a few weeks to admit it to herself, but she liked the work almost as much as she did her work in the Parks department.  
  
She liked the idea of making a difference beyond the scope of the Parks department.  
  
She still thought the Parks department epitomized everything government should be about: fostering those intangibles that make life, well, worth living. Things like children’s concerts, green hiking trails, and senior citizen Valentine’s Day dances. But she had to admit that garbage pick-up and bus routes were important too. No one cared until you stopped picking up their garbage, but it still mattered.  
  
And the thought of being part of that thrilled her.  
  
And she didn’t know what that meant for her.  
  
And she wasn’t quite ready to say it aloud.  
  
That she might be ready for more.  
  
“Admit it. You like him.”  
  
“What?” Leslie had stopped listening. It was the opportunity, thought even, of telling Ann, her beautiful best friend, that Leslie was ready to do something else, that scared her. She wasn’t ready to admit it aloud. It was her own wonderful, possible secret she wanted to hold onto for a little longer.  
  
“You like him. That’s why you’re doing this.”  
  
In retrospect, Leslie would realize that now would have been the time to spill her real secret and maybe even chastise Ann for being so foolish to think that Leslie would go to that much time and trouble, would ditch her friends, to impress a boy, but that realization came much, much later.  
  
“Yeah, that’s why I’m doing this.” Leslie sighed, “I think he’s cute.”  
  
It was enough for Ann and she patted Leslie’s shoulder, “Oh, sweetie we need to work on your flirting…”  
  
***  
  
The cookout is on Lot 48 and because Ann is hosting it, Chris would be there and because Chris would be there Ben would be too. It isn’t the first pity invitation he’s received and he doubted it would be the last. There were two types of towns: the first resented the state auditors that came to slash and burn and turned a cold shoulder, made it impossible to work with them, and the second was sickly sweet, inviting them in and making them part of the family as if that would stop the hard decisions that had to be made. Pawnee is neither. She is a reluctant friend, even a bit reserved in her invitations, but friendly none-the-less. Really it was just the Parks department that extended the invitations, and Ben is pretty sure they are all because of Leslie.  
  
Though none of them came from her.  
  
It is weird, their friendship or partnership. He isn’t sure what to call it.  
  
After that first night he’d been sure she wouldn’t talk to him ever again. The way it ended and that moment (there had been a moment, he hadn’t imagined it) made him unsure of himself. The whole evening seemed like something out-of-time, like the perfect summer night, and then with one cell phone ring it’d ended. He hadn’t told Karla about it, but he did leave Leslie’s butcher paper list tacked up to his hotel walls. He woke up the next morning and stared at it from bed, hands laced behind his head. Something, he couldn’t remember what now, had sparked a thought and he was up, out of bed, bent over in his boxers, adding his own notes next to hers. There was another stray thought before he left for the office and a third when he came home with another wrong take-out order from JJ’s. Soon it became a blank landscape of thoughts, his co-mingled with hers and when he filled it up he drove to a Office Depot and picked up his own butcher paper and started a new one. That one, though, didn’t have her scrawl on it, the slanted half-cursive, half-print way she wrote and it seemed incomplete to him and he thought of calling her.  
  
There hadn’t been an EBTF meeting that week and with the government closed down she hadn’t been in the office…  
  
But he didn’t call her.  
  
It wasn’t appropriate. There had been that moment and there couldn’t be more of those. So he called Karla more, which seemed to thrill her rather than annoy her like it had in the past, and they talked Washington politics and for about a day-and-a-half he didn’t write any more ideas down on the butcher paper.  
  
But then she’d texted him.  
  
Houserman just bought a cabin north of Pawnee and hired movers. Brother relocating?  
  
He’d called her and she’d picked up before the first ring had finished and they were off again.  
  
She came over the next night to flesh out their plans. She’d brought the beer this time and he’d already ordered her favorite pizza (with everything) and when she walked in and saw the second piece of butcher paper her mouth twitched and turned up on one side in a way that made Ben stuff his hands into his pockets and rock a bit on his feet.  
  
It was a tenuous alliance. The conversation didn’t automatically flow. It stalled and became stilted anytime one of them became uncomfortable; like when she said off-handed that her ball busting mother worked in education. The question had been on the tip of his tongue,  _Ball-busting?_ , but she’d taken a long drink of beer and then started talking about something else entirely. When they were arguing about the health department’s line item for blood donation drives ( _the one thing he thought they had to keep, she thought hospitals could pick it up_ ), he’d mentioned Jenny and how many times he’d given blood because of her and then remembered he didn’t talk about his sister, even with Karla, and stopped short.   
  
Still, there were moments, glorious and free moments, when the ideas flowed between them and they talked over each other, voices rising and falling and then a meeting of the minds and…collapse. That’s the way Ben had come to think about it. Their eyes would meet or elbows brush ( _both writing on the butcher paper_ ) and something turned over, emptied itself out inside of Ben. It wasn’t sexual tension ( _okay, she was a smart, beautiful woman so that was some of it_ ), but something deeper. When he recollected it sometimes, before sleep, it stretched to the tips of his fingers and he’d smile, in the dark, in bed, alone. Ben knew what it was and he felt foolish, but it was joy. Working with Leslie made him joyful.  
  
And for that very reason, he was cautious.  
  
Leslie Knope was dangerous for him. She brought out parts of him that didn’t fit.  
  
And she was cautious herself.  
  
When she came over to his hotel, she sat on the farthest bed and wore high necked blouses. She didn’t take off her shoes and almost never took off her blazer. It was silly, but he noticed and he knew why. And so Ben did the same. He dressed like he was going for work and turned the air conditioning up so high neither would want to shed any of their clothing. She only drank two beers, dragging them out over the evening, and set an alarm on her phone that beeped at ten o’clock as if they were in a fairy tale and there was a bell tolling somewhere and when it stopped she would cease to be a mid-level government in a sad hotel room eating cold pizza and scheming to save her town.  
  
So they labored on with their secret rendezvous, though the actual event did nothing to merit the name, and never talked about the fact that neither person told anyone what they were doing. There were emails and text messages and one other night of planning _(Chinese this time. They both love Crab Wontons)_ but Ben couldn’t tell you where Leslie lived or her hobbies or preferred season. He didn’t know whether she went to church or had a boyfriend or even how long she’d been working in the Parks department. He did know she wanted to run for office and she believed in public service. She was an optimist and fiercely loyal and prone to making inspirational speeches even if there was only one person in the room. And, yes, he believed she was a bit naive, but he wasn’t convinced that was a bad thing.  
  
And he wouldn’t change a thing. If the summer could stretch out before them and there could be more nights of greasy food, planning, and edging around dangerous corners of familiarity…  
  
But of course it couldn’t.  
  
He tips a warm beer back and lets the liquid run down his throat. Someone, Ann and Chris probably, had clustered a few picnic tables around a grill. Tom’d brought DJ Roomba ( _which Ben actually thought was a good idea_ ) and Andy and April were throwing marshmallows at one another. Chris was playing host and grill master and Ben sat alone at a picnic table watching the proceedings, wondering where Leslie was. She hadn’t been at a few of the last things Chris had dragged Ben too and her absence made Ben wonder if she had a boyfriend. She’d never mentioned one, but there was no reason for her to tell him and a muscle twitches in Ben’s cheek at the thought of her somewhere else tonight rather than here.  
  
Before he could dwell on it, Leslie pulls up in a car right behind Ann. She gets out and Ben’s mind does that emptying thing again, where he couldn’t have processed a thought if he’d wanted too. She is dressed for summer and for a barbeque: simple navy dress with tiny straps and sandals. Her hair was pinned back off her face and she wore some sort of earrings that dangled, brushing against the curve of her neck. His throat contracts and he looks down, finds his phone, and scrolls through his contacts until he finds Karla’s name. A reminder of reality.  
She doesn’t see him at first and he indulges himself in watching her among her friends, completely relaxed and free. She isn’t that way with him. There is some sort of tension between them, something that causes them both to hold back from one another. He imagines for her it was the very real possibility that he could cause her to be fired. For him, he prefers not to name it.  
  
It takes a slight turn and she sees him. She raises a hand and he his beer. She finishes what she is saying to Tom and approaches.  
  
“Hey.”  
  
“Hey,” he glances up from his phone which he’d been using to look busy.  
  
“I didn’t know you would be here.” She sits next to him on the bench, not touching but it is close enough.  
  
“I didn’t know I was going to be here. Chris invited me.”  
  
“That was nice.”  
  
“Yeah, it was.”  
  
They lapse into some sort of silence and Ben tried to talk himself out of his nervousness. This was ridiculous. They talked all the time. She’d been to his hotel room. There was no reason to nervous.  
  
“Are you enjoying summer?” He tries.  
  
Her eyebrows furrow and Ben is desperately racking his mind for a conversation topic, anything, when she throws him a life preserver.  
“I am. I am especially liking the work with the EBTF.”  
  
Ben smiled, “Really?”  
  
“Yeah,” she knocks his elbow with hers, “Aren’t you having fun?”  
  
Ben shrugs, “Yeah, I guess. It’s just not my first time doing this. You know?”  
  
Leslie props her elbows up onto the table and leans against them, “Hmm, and because this is my first time…”  
  
“No, I didn’t mean it like that.”  
  
“Are you sure?” She swung a leg over the bench so she straddles it, like she is ready to leave.  
  
Ben catches her arm, feels both of them stiffen, and instantly drops it, “I just meant that this is my job. For you it’s a fun little side project. It gets…” he searches for the right word, “repetitive after a while. That’s all.”  
  
Her lips thin, “It’s not a fun little side project for me Ben. This is Pawnee we’re talking about. All of it is for Pawnee. I thought you got that. I thought you cared.”  
  
Ben jerks his head a little, “Don’t act like some martyr. You’re doing this cause you like it. You’ve out grown you’re job and you know it. This is new. It’s a challenge and it’s like crack to you. This isn’t about Pawnee; it’s about you.”  
  
She sucks in a breath, but remembers they are surrounded by people and hisses, “And you’re an ass. A know-it-all with a shriveled up, prune heart. You don’t know me. You don’t know Pawnee. And I’d wish you’d just leave.”  
  
And with that, she is gone.  
  
Yeah, Ben thinks, that wasn’t good.  
  
***  
  
“Do you think I’m a know-it-all?” Ben stands in front of the vending machine in his hotel lobby trying to decide if he wanted a Snickers bar or Butterfingers for dinner. After Leslie stormed off, he’d made a quick excuse to Ann and Chris and left the cookout. They were her friends, not his.  
  
Over the phone, his sister sighed, “Yes.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“You’re a know-it-all. A numbers robot.”  
  
“Jesus, Jen,” he leans forward against the vending machine, his forehead resting on the plastic.  
  
“Don’t get me wrong, you’re my numbers robot,” her voice is affectionate and it makes Ben smile, “no one gets to call you that but me. Who did it? I’ll beat them up for you. Was it Chris? I never trusted him — too nice. Must be hiding something. Or Karla? I’ve been telling you for…”  
  
“It wasn’t either of them. It isn’t a big deal. I was just thinking.”  
  
“It was the girl, wasn’t it?” Jenny exclaims and Ben closes his eyes, shakes his head.  
  
Ben knew she was sitting on her screened-in-porch, that she only turned on the twinkle lights he’d strung for her on his last visit. He knew the air smelled like camp fires, and that she was wrapped in a blanket with sweet tea at her elbow and watching the fire flies dance across her yard. Jenny was the part of his life that was safe and totally terrifying at the same time. Nothing ever changed with her, not since he was a kid. She’d been steady and brave and happy for as long as he could remember, but there was always the chance, the very probable chance, that the bottom could fall out at any time.  
  
 _The girl_  was Jenny’s latest thing. She asked every time they talked about  _the girl_ and eventually Ben had indulged her. It’d been sometime right after that night in his hotel room and he told her about it all: that first meeting, the beer ( _You voluntarily told her about boy-mayor? You never do that…_ ), that damn fleeting moment they’d shared that seemed to have evaporated, and how she could drive him crazy in an instant.  
  
“I like her,” Jenny’d said, “I like her more than I like Karla.”  
  
“That’s cause you don’t like Karla,” Ben reminded her.  
  
“No, I don’t dislike Karla. I just don’t like what she does to you. She assumes things about you and you take them as truth about yourself and then you flip your life upside down to become that person. This girl says something about you and you question it even if she’s right. You don’t let it go unchallenged even if the challenge is for yourself. I like that.”  
  
Still, Ben had never told her Leslie’s name. It was his one caveat. So she became  _the girl_.  
  
“Do you think you’re cheating on Karla?” she’d asked one time. It’d been right after one of their meetings and Ben was still coming down from whatever high he had from the evening. She’d asked it gently as if trying to create room for him to answer truthfully.  
  
“What? No.”  
  
“You talk about this girl more than you talk about Karla.”  
  
“That’s cause you don’t like Karla.”  
  
“Okay, you talk about this girl more than you talk about moving to D.C. and all you did before Pawnee is talk about D.C..”  
  
Ben had rubbed a hand over his face, “No I’m not cheating on Karla.”  
  
“There is such thing as an emotional affair.”  
  
“Yeah, if I even knew how to feel about her that might be a problem. She seriously drives me insane sometimes. I don’t even know if I like her as a person.”  
  
“Are you sleeping with her?”  
  
Ben chortled, “I don’t think I’ve even shaken her hand.”  
  
“Just be careful, Ben. I don’t want to see you do something you’ll regret.”  
  
“I won’t. I’m not interested, not really.” He’d said it, but knew she hadn’t believed him and didn’t really believe himself.  
  
He remembered that conversation now as Jenny begs for details on what  _the girl_ had said ( _he suspects Jenny thinks the girl would be a kick-ass friend too and is living vicariously through him_ ). He gives up on the idea of dinners and heads back outside to go to his room ( _it is one of those cheap hotels where hall of rooms was open to the parking lot. Ben hates it._ ) Jenny is talking on about how much she likes  _the girl_ and  _the girl_ is right, he was a know-it-all, but she should know Ben uses numbers and facts to hide behind so…when he gets to the top of his stairs and sees a figure sitting against his door, “Hey Jen,” he tucks his chin down, “I gotta go.”  
  
“But we’ve got to come up with a way for you two to make-up…” she protests.  
  
“ _The girl,_ ” he says it softly and slowly, “is sitting outside my hotel room.”  
  
And he hangs up before Jenny can say another word.  
  
***  
  
Leslie had almost talked herself out of this when Ben shows. He’d been on the phone ( _probably with Karla…_ ) and he’d paused at the top of his stairs, staring at her. Leslie shifts under his gaze and holds a breath until his lips twitch up and then she lets herself exhale.  
  
“Hey.”  
  
“Hey.”  
  
He doesn’t talk, just looks down at her and her paper bag of food and the checkered table cloth folded in her lap.  
  
“I’m sorry I called you heartless,” she says.  
  
“I’m sorry I belittled all of this,” he gestured back and forth between them and Leslie wonders which he meant, their work for Pawnee or perhaps more, but she doesn’t have the chance to think about it because he is pointing to the bag, “What that?”  
  
“Dinner,” she grins mischievously, “you don’t think I’d show up at your hotel room without food?” She starts to stand which is harder than it should be in Ann’s too-short dress ( _this was one of Ann’s tips on flirting that Leslie had indulged. Coming over to apologize had been her own idea_ ) but Ben is there with two hands and a “Let me help you.”  
  
She underestimated his strength and his tug catches her off balance; her shoulder bumps against his chest and she puts up a hand to straighten herself and realizes her palm is laying flat against Ben’s stomach. He is looking down at her with an easy smile and she curses him that he doesn’t seem affected at all when she is sure she was red all over. She forces herself to act nonchalant.   
  
“Come on, I don’t want the food to get cold.”  
  
There is a plate of hamburgers and hotdogs along with condiments, chips, and fruit and potato salad in tupperware. She procured a couple beers ( _for him_ ) and wine coolers ( _for her_ ) and even a plate of Ron’s brownies, which he was strangely adept at making. Ben laughs when she spreads the checkered table cloth over his rickety table, but helps her move aside the file folders, newspapers, and a book on the history of ESPN ( _What you don’t think I’m a total dork, do you?_ ).  
  
“There is nothing that says summer to me more than hot dogs off the grill,” Leslie says once they settled down to eat.  
  
“Really?”  
  
“It’s the only way I’ll eat them.”  
  
“I like mine burned,” Ben says.  
  
“Me too!”  
  
“I know it’s a small thing, but I love a good grilled hot dog.”  
  
“Yeah,” she trails off.  
  
Ben clears his throat and sits up, “About earlier, I really am sorry. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”  
  
“How did you mean it then?” There is nothing accusatory in her voice, just curiosity. Ben tips up his eyes and played with the beer bottle he clutches between his hands, turning it slowly.  
  
“I’m kind of over my job. That’s all.”  
  
“But you’re making a difference…”  
  
“But I want to make more of a difference,” he puts the beer bottle down and leans on the table, “This may sound egotistical, but haven’t you ever wanted to be caught up in something bigger than yourself, to be a crucial part of something important. To have a voice.”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“Well, that’s hard to feel when you’re a numbers robot.”  
  
“A what?”  
  
He waved a hand, “Nothing, something someone called me once.”  
  
She isn’t looking at him, had settled on the floor, and she feels him watch her, but she doesn’t look up. She is debating back and forth, trying to decide if she wanted to step over the line she’d drawn in her mind around their relationship. Could you call it a relationship? It was something, that’s for sure. She’d been so careful over the past weeks and she couldn’t tell you why. There was no reason to be cautious other than the fact that he could get her fired, right? That was the reason for her hesitancy…it had to be. Nothing else about Ben Wyatt was dangerous.  
  
But now it felt like such a big deal to tell him the thing that she wasn’t ready to tell Ann, except she really wanted too. It felt completely natural - like breathing or laughing - it was the instinctive reaction to this instant. It was exactly what she was supposed to do: to befriend this man.   
  
“So I might have told Ann I liked you as a way to explain why I was working so hard on all these budgets, but,” and she glances up to see him turn his head slightly and she plunges forward not thinking about what he hoped she might say, “but I did that so I didn’t have to tell her that I’m doing all of this because…because I really love the work. Like really, really love it.”  
  
He runs a hand through his hair and half-laughs, “And so what I said earlier tonight…”  
  
“Stung.”  
  
“Yeah, but why didn’t you just tell Ann the truth?”  
  
Leslie pushes back her chair, put both elbows on her knees, and drops her forehead into her hands, “Ugh, I don’t know. I’m just not ready to admit it to anyone yet. It just feels like a betrayal.”  
  
“To who?”  
  
“To everyone! It means that my job isn’t enough for me and I love my job. I love my life. If I change jobs I’d have to leave my friends and I love them. They’re more important than work.”  
  
“But you talk about, I don’t know becoming the first female president, all the time…”  
  
“Yeah, but talking and doing are very different,” Leslie rolls her eyes. Did he know that? “How could I just leave them?”  
  
“People do it all the time, Leslie. People change jobs, cities even, and they stay friends.”  
  
“Do you have friends in all the places you’ve worked?” She looks over at him, hopeful.  
  
“Um, no, but I’m not the best role model for this. I’m terrible at it actually.”  
  
“Then how -,” she starts, but he sits forward, over the table, like he wants to get her attention.  
  
“How do I know? Because I know you, albeit not well, but I think I’ve got a pretty good read. I know that a relationship of any kind takes effort and no one would put more effort in than you.”  
  
She smiles and he smiles back. He settles back, satisfied, and they fall into a comfortable silence.  
  
What he said didn’t make her insecurities go away completely, but she did feel better, like she’d been given permission for something.  
  
“Pawnee is my last post.”  
  
He says it quickly, like an admission, and Leslie is caught off guard.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Pawnee is my last post. I’m taking a job in D.C. in September.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“To be with my girlfriend…” he looks away from her for that last part.  
  
“Karla?”  
  
“Yeah. I’ve wanted to for a long time - the job part I mean. And I haven’t told anyone, not even Chris.” he looked at her again, “I thought since you were sharing secrets, I’d share mine.”  
  
She actively chooses to hear the second part and not the first - the part about the girlfriend she’d suspected - and instead lets it sink in that he was confiding in her. That this whatever-it-is wasn’t one sided; he felt it too. Neither of them seemed to know what to do with it. It was like some sort of platonic attraction, a friend crush. Yeah, that’s what it was. She’d had something similar with Ann when they’d first met - she’d decided Ann was the type of person she wanted to be friends with - and that is exactly what was happening with Ben. He was Ann, but not. He was Ben and he wanted to be her friend.  
  
She tips her head sideways, “Are we becoming friends?”  
  
His forehead wrinkles, “I think so.”  
  
She is flooded with something akin to happiness, but it was more than that, and she didn’t check herself like she would have earlier in the evening, “Let’s play Twenty Questions...”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Friends should know things about each other and the way I figure we’ve got what…” she counts, “twelve weeks until you move to D.C. And then we’ll have to do the long distance friendship thing that you say is normal and doable. If it is then I want to be good at it so the way I figure, we’re already behind.”  
  
He rubs a hand over his mouth in his bemusement, “I’m not sure I follow the reasoning, but I’m game.”  
  
She claps her hands and this makes him laugh. They play two or three rounds of Twenty Questions; she looses track after a while because his answers spur follow-ups and tangents and hers usually need explanation.  
  
“So you’re favorite place in the whole world is the flower mural on the second floor?” Ben laughs later. He is slumped down in his seat, shirt sleeves rolled up, and legs propped up on an extra chair. She’d relocated to the bed at some point, and is curled up in an extra blanket and leaning against the headboard, absently flipping through his history of ESPN book.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
He shrugs, “I could see that. The florescent lighting does do great things for your skin.”  
  
She laughs and it turns into a yawn that stretches on. She curls her arms up across her chest and lets her head fall back against the wall. Ben looks at his watch and sits up, “It’s one o’clock.”  
  
“Is it really?” she stifles another yawn, “How long have I been here?”  
  
“Six hours,” Ben stands and says, “I’m really sorry.” He starts picking up the remnants of their hotel room picnic.  
  
“No, don’t be. I had fun.” Leslie stands too, sorry it was ending ( _though totally appropriate_ ) and wishes there was some reason she could stay and keep talking to him.  
  
He stills, catches her gaze, and smiles, “I had fun too.”  
  
They hold the look longer than necessary and Leslie feels that heat rise up in her neck again and forces herself to look away. There is no space for long looks between them. Friends didn’t gaze into one another’s eyes, notice when an extra bit of skin showed, and play a mental round of What if. She silently lectures herself as they soundlessly clean up and Ben doesn’t seem bothered by her silence and she adds that to the list of reasons she’d been mentally making all night for why a friendship with Ben is important and perfect.   
  
He walks her to the door and leans against the door jam.  
  
“Let me get shoes and I’ll walk you to your car,” he says.  
  
“No, you’re fine.”  
  
“Seriously, let me.”  
  
“My car is right there. You can watch me and make sure I’m not mobbed by raccoons.”  
  
This tugs a smile out of him and he stuffs his hands into his pockets, “Goodnight Leslie.”  
  
She is good; she doesn’t look over her shoulder until her car is loaded. He is leaning against the railing, watching her and she holds up a hand to wave goodbye. He does too and she climbs into her car. Just before she shut the door, he shouts her name, “Leslie.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“I’m glad we’re friends.”  
  
She smiles softly, “Me too.”  
  
***  
  
He’d meant it when he’d told Leslie he was glad they were friends. He told himself over and over that he meant it and he is pretty convinced he had. He also told himself that friends was all he was interested in, but he is less convincing in that arena and settles for pushing the distracting thoughts away. He doesn’t really have time to dwell on them anyway. Being friends with Leslie is commitment enough. He’d never met someone with so much energy. Now that he’d been granted access ( _because that’s exactly how he thought of it)_ , he is subject to all of Leslie and that meant plans and schemes and adventures.  
  
There was a team Scrabble tournament at her house ( _which they won_ ).  
  
More than a few nights at the Snakehole and the Bulge.  
  
An impromptu dodgeball tournament ( _which Leslie and Ron won_ ).  
  
And a marathon of the History Channels miniseries on the Roosevelt's ( _which only he showed up too watch_ ).  
  
Of course there was their work on the Emergency Budget Task Force and lunches at JJ’s to strategize. He’d put the kabosh on more long meetings in his hotel room. Jenny’s warning still echoed in his ears and he had to be able to continue to justify to himself that there was no need to tell Karla about Leslie ( _since they were just friends and rarely completely alone_ ) just yet. He just didn’t feel like explaining his choices on this one.  
  
The other reason for no more rendezvous in his hotel room was the butcher paper. He’d never really taken it down and while Leslie had mentioned it only in passing on her last visit that was before he started using it to scribble other types of notes to himself. It started with something that peripherally had to do with the EBTF, but really was something he wanted to remember to tell Leslie. Then it was a second thing and a third. Eventually it became both things to tell Leslie and things she’d said. He couldn’t explain why he wrote down things she said, tidbits really - funny quotes, arguments they’d had, and a few passing “Wouldn’t it be nice…” - except that he wanted to. It was a compulsion and he didn’t like to think too hard about any of it. Frankly, that was one of his favorite parts about Leslie; there was no internal drive in him to be reasonable or justified when it came to her. He just let himself be, both when he was around her and when he wasn’t. With her in and out of his day he became almost free.  
  
He couldn’t put it into words and he imagined it had something to do with how his mind emptied a little whenever he got the moment to just watch her. Something about her unwound something in him. Ben wasn’t sure what it was yet and he really didn’t want to think about it too much ( _this was his excuse for not telling Karla about Leslie- he didn’t know how to frame it_ ). But at the end of June, three weeks into being friends with Leslie, when he tacked up a third sheet of butcher paper and realized this one would have nothing to do with fixing Pawnee, that it was just about Leslie, and that his hotel room was beginning to resemble a madmen’s lair, he knew he was in trouble.  
  
Deep trouble.


	3. Chapter 3

“Bye! Sorry about the vegetable loaf. I’m sure Ron would’ve liked it if he’d tried it…” Leslie trails offas Chris and Ann disappear into the darkness where their car is parked. She stands on the front stoop and from Ben’s vantage point he has the perfect view of her profile. She isn’t looking at him, but at the fading figures of their friends. Dusk hangs on the horizon and street lamps flicker on to keep their night watch. Ben tips a beer back and leans comfortably into the porch swing he sits in.  
  
Leslie turns to him, “Is Chris going to be mad Ron threw his vegetable loaf out a window?”  
  
“Correction,” Ben tips the bottle neck toward her, “at a window. It never did make it through the glass.”  
  
“Yeah, I’m going to have to get that fixed.”  
  
“Probably,” Ben’s lips twitch as Leslie laughs and sits down next to him in the porch swing. She’s barefoot, a phenomenon that Ben had found distracting all evening. Her toes are painted a bright, siren red. Who would have thought?  
  
She pushes against the porch with a bare toe, gets them swinging, and tucks her legs beneath her.  
  
“This was a good night.” She decides, looking out over the street.  
  
“Yeah, it was. Much more successful than the Murder Mystery party.”  
  
“That,” she holds out a finger, “would have been great if Bert Macland and Janet Snakehole hadn’t shown up and acted out their own murder mystery.”  
  
“Yeah, but you had Jerry as narrator and Chris as the murderer,” Ben laughs, “Jerry wouldn’t have been able to put two words together and Chris carries bugs outside rather than kill them.”  
  
Leslie laughs thoroughly and something in Ben turns over.  
  
He should go. He’s the last one here and she has to be tired. He needs to call Karla before it gets too late on the East coast…but it had been such a great night, not just with Leslie, but with everyone. Leslie had had them over for a potluck and everyone brought something to share ( _except for Ron who was oddly possessive about his deviled eggs_ ). There had been lots of noise - laughter, talking over one another, teasing and clamor that it filled up the night in a way that Ben wasn’t used too and he didn’t quite want it to end just yet.  
  
Leslie senses the shift in him, picks up on the tenor of his mood even if she might not know the content. She leans an elbow on the back of the porch swing and studies him, “Penny for your thoughts.”  
  
“Hmm?” he looks up at her, “Just thinking.”  
  
“Of what?”  
  
He licks his lips, “Of how nice this all is, Pawnee and friends. I haven’t had it before or at least not for a long time.”  
  
“Since Ice Town?”  
  
Ben weighs his words, “Since before that.”  
  
She frowns, “What happened before Ice Town?”  
  
He knew it would come up; they’d played enough rounds of twenty questions that Ben couldn’t skirt the issue forever. Leslie seemed to pick up that there were things that he preferred not to talk about, not to share, and didn’t broach those topics. He was thankful. He doubts she realized she is doing it now.  
  
He gives a shaky laugh, “Uh, can we take a rain check on that story?”  
  
She straightens, “Of course. I didn’t mean to -,”  
  
“No, don’t. It’s a depressing story and there is no reason to ruin such a perfect night with it.”  
  
He feels the pressure of her gaze on his profile. He’s looking at his lap and is slightly afraid to look up, to see what is or isn’t in her gaze. He is afraid to be disappointed. He is even more afraid to feel how deeply that disappointment could go. He rationalizes that it wasn’t fair to Karla, to tell Leslie something he hadn’t even told his girlfriend yet.  
  
“First question,” Leslie breaks their silence. Her voice falls into it’s chipper cadence.  
  
“Do you know how late it is?” Ben laughs and rubs a hand through his hair.  
  
“Come on! One round…”  
  
“Fine, first question.”  
  
“Favorite breakfast food?”  
  
Ben smiles, “You can keep asking the question, but that doesn’t mean the answer is going to change.”  
  
“Come on, how can you not say waffles? You loved them when we went to JJ’s!”  
  
“They were good, but that was for lunch. I just don’t like that much sugar in the morning.”  
  
“That is dumb.”  
  
“Accepted.”  
  
Leslie pretends to be upset, crossing her arms and turning away, but gives up and her lips tug back up into a smile, “You’re turn.”  
Ben rubs his hands together, “Let’s see…”  
  
They play long after the sun had sunk down over the horizon and they could only see by the lamplight on Leslie’s porch. The street is quiet and Ben knows they’re pushing the boundaries of what friends would do, what they could both be comfortable with. It had been like that in the last three weeks since they’d decided they were going to be friends - always edging around that line between friendship and something else. It warranted disapproving looks from Ann and awkward jokes from Tom. More so, it meant Ben had to constantly check himself. He had a tedious internal monologue that circled around what was right and what he wanted. He accepted his own feelings because trying to deny them was taking the effort of a second job, but he buried them under every rational thought he could muster. He tried so hard to shove Leslie into friend category.  
  
At some point it is Leslie’s turn. Ben is fading and in the middle of a yawn when she says, “Tell me why you haven’t seen Karla since you’ve been in Pawnee.”  
  
The question, which really isn’t a question, throws him. He coughs, “Um, I don’t know.”  
  
“It’s been six weeks.”  
  
“Since?”  
  
“Since you’ve been in Pawnee and you haven’t been to see her or her to see you. How come?”  
  
They’d talked about Karla one night - Leslie had devoted a whole round of Twenty Questions to finding out about his girlfriend. She’d been dutifully impressed by her credentials and murmured the right things when he talked about why he admired Karla ( _drive, focus, and tenacity_ ). Afterward, Ben realized she’d just interrogated him. It wasn’t like their normal conversations, which ebbed and flowed. This was one of those knock ‘em out, rip-the-bandaid-off experiences. The information didn’t alter their relationship in any way. She didn’t ask how Karla was, just acknowledged when he stepped out to take a call from her, and picked right back up when he came back.  
  
So now it threw him completely.  
  
“Ah, I don’t know. There just hasn’t been time.”  
  
The truth was he’d planned on visiting about three weeks ago, had mentioned it to Karla who’d said she was busy that weekend with work, and since then he’d forgotten about the idea entirely.  
  
“You should visit. No woman likes to wait that long to see her boyfriend. It’s rude.”  
  
“How is it rude?”  
  
“It means you’re not making an effort. That you’re not including her in your day-to-day life.”  
  
“We talk every day.”  
  
“Not enough. And you should surprise her. Women love to be surprised…”  
  
He knows she’s right. It’s been too long.  
  
“Fine,” he says and doesn’t miss the irony that when she grins at having gotten her way that his heart pounds in his ears.  
  
***  
“Ann, come on!”  
  
“Leslie, I still don’t get what we’re doing.”  
  
“We’re taking up cross country skiing.”  
  
“But it’s summer.”  
  
“And that means we only have a few months to learn,” Leslie leans over the training poles she’d bought online. The website had made this whole thing seem like a lot more fun.  
  
Ann throws her own poles down and drops onto the grass. They are in a field in Ramsett Park and bless Ann ( _she was trying_ ), it was seven a.m. on a Saturday morning, and their training was going less than spectacular. Leslie decided a break was in order and takes a seat next to Ann, their legs stretched out side by side.  
  
“I think,” Ann yawns, “we should just settle right down here and go back to sleep.” She leans back onto her elbows and closes her eyes toward the sun.  
  
Leslie frowns. She had a full day planned for the two of them filled with adventure and excitement and adventure and…well, she thought it was pretty good. They had to jam it all into one day because it was all they seemed to have for one another anymore. Correction, it was all Ann had time for anymore. Friday night was her regular date night with Chris and there were their morning jogs and trips to the health store which was forty minutes away. With the government shut down Leslie had so much time. Her work with Ben and the Emergency Budget Task Force only took up ten hours a day. The rest of her time dragged. She’d tried Tom, but he was working and hitting on women. Ron refused to tell her where he lived and Andy and April ( _who were something though she couldn’t tell you what_ ) were fun but since that first time when they’d all gotten stuck on the roof of Council Houserman’s house ( _Don’t ask_ ) she decided to selectively hang out with them.  
  
That left Ben. Thank goodness for Ben who was always available and really a lot of fun. Okay, he was more than fun. He was…Ben. Leslie had a hard time putting it into words other than that. He was resolutely her Ben.  
  
“Ann,” Leslie knows her voice is whiny, but doesn’t care, “you promised…”  
  
“A whole day of Leslie and Ann, Super intelligent-beautiful-but-not-slutty-strong-but-not-to-masculine-cause-we-still-rock-the-dresses women against the world, defeating lameness and standing for awesomeness everywhere,” Ann quotes.  
  
“Yes, that’s it exactly.”  
  
“And can’t that include a nap.”  
  
“But I wanted to learn how to cross country ski.”  
  
“Leslie,” Ann opens a single eye, “we’re walking through the park with ski poles. Besides, get Ben to do it with you. He’s always game for that type of stuff.”  
  
“He’s not the same…”  
  
“As what?”  
  
“As you!”  
  
Ann smiles, “That’s so sweet. I know I’ve been really preoccupied, but you were the same way a few weeks ago. Remember I had to drag you to your own cookout.”  
  
That was when Leslie had been hiding her work with Ben ( _she still couldn’t fully explain why she’d done that_ ), but now that they were friends they could meet during normal daylight hours.  
  
“It just seems like you and Chris are really serious all a sudden.”  
  
“I dunno,” Ann sits up and shrugs, “He had this injury in his shoulder from doing too many push ups and he thought he was dying which of course was ridiculous, but it’s made him very intent suddenly like he’s looking at life differently.”  
  
“Do you like that?” Leslie asks with trepidation.  
  
“Yeah, I think so. I mean I really care about him and it’s only been six weeks so it’s not like anything is going to happen anytime soon.”  
  
“Just be careful.”  
  
“You’re one to talk…” Ann knocks her with an elbow.  
  
“What does that mean?”  
  
“Ben has a girl friend.”  
  
“I know. We’re just friends.”  
  
Ann snorts.  
  
Leslie cringes. She still hadn’t told Ann that was a lie. It wasn’t about hiding the work she was doing anymore, but keeping up the facade of liking Ben. She needed to tell Ann the truth, that she’d never liked Ben like that, but she’d have to explain the reason why she’d lied, that she had been thinking for a while now about making a change. Then Ann would want to know why Leslie didn’t just tell her that in the first place and that left Leslie at a loss. She has no idea why she hasn’t told Ann or Ron, but has taken Ben into her confidence. No idea.  
But honesty is the best policy and Ann is her best friend.  
  
“You know when you want something really badly…” Leslie starts to say.  
  
Ann puts a hand on her arm, “You don’t have to explain. I understand. He’s off limits.”  
  
“No, that’s not it.”  
  
“I get it. If friendship is all you can get then it’s what you’ll take,” Ann stands, “Come on, let’s pretend to learn how to cross country ski in July.”  
  
Leslie exhales and follows after her friend. She didn’t get to make her point: they were just friends. She’d practically guilt tripped him into surprising his girlfriend with a romantic visit. That was proof he was only a friend. At least, she kept telling herself it was proof.  
  
***  
No one would look at Ben and think athlete, but he has an arm and he can field a baseball. That doesn’t mean he is any good at frisbee golf. The skill set just doesn’t translate.  
  
But then again, he’s not sure what translates to frisbee golf except, well, the ability to throw a flat disc hundreds of feet into a small basket hoisted onto a pole. Still, he’s out on a Saturday morning playing frisbee golf with Tom, it’s not their first time, and it’s kind of becoming a regular thing, and he’s kind of loving it.  
  
“So the idea is once I have a cologne empire…” Tom is talking and Ben wishes he could focus more, but his thoughts are trailing today: across work, Leslie, and his impending trip to D.C. He bought the ticket last night, clicked the submit button with a long exhaled breath and tried not to think too hard about why he was nervous. It wasn’t to see Karla. He knew she’d either be happy or put out to see him and it wouldn’t have anything actually to do with him. For Karla, everything was work; her whole mood and life depended on it. If it got in the way of her job it warranted annoyance. If you side stepped her job then you got what Ben thought of as the real Karla, the smart, witty woman who he loved. But you had to learn that Karla saw the world in black and white: it either conflicted with what she was about (again, her job) or it didn’t. No hard feelings meant of course. It took some getting used too and Ben wasn’t always sure he liked it and he certainly didn’t think it was healthy, but he understood. Karla’s sob story had come out one night when she’d had too much to drink and it wasn’t anything new: grew up poor with an abusive father who repeatedly put her mother in the hospital and she was out to prove life wasn’t going to beat her up. It both explained and excused the detached ferocity with which she went at life, and Ben liked it because it meant he got his life in order. That’s what this move to D.C. was all about.  
  
That’s not why he is nervous though. He’s nervous to leave Pawnee. It’s weird - like if he leaves the spell will be broken, and like Brigadoon, Pawnee will have faded into a mist not to appear for another hundred years. It’s why he was almost late this morning - he’d been staring at the butcher paper panels tacked to his wall (up to four now which certifies his room as lair of a madman). His scribbling isn’t just about Leslie either (though most of them are) - he keeps track of his games with Tom, things to teach Chris to do on his own (the word no is on the top of that list), and even a few Ron-isms he’s thought were good. It’s like he’s sketching out Pawnee on butcher paper, or at least his own little slice of it, and somewhere deep down Ben is terrified that leaving will change his perspective. What Jenny said - that Ben takes Karla’s word as gospel and changes himself - that bothers him. He doesn’t want Karla’s opinion on Pawnee. He likes his own.  
  
"So what's up with you and Leslie?"   
  
"Huh?"   
  
Tom shrugs his shoulders, "I mean are you tapping that?"  
  
"She's your boss."  
  
"So?"  
  
"Well, I don't think you should talk about her like that." Even Ben thought he sounded lame. Tom rolls his eyes.  
  
"I mean are you guys hooking up."  
  
"I have a girlfriend."  
  
"Seriously? And she's okay with you having a mildly attractive best buddy you spend all your time with?"  
  
Ben hurls the disc and it flies wildly into nowhere.  
  
"We're just friends."   
  
"Sure, and I'm Jay-Z instead of a slender Indian American."   
  
"It's the way it is." was all Ben could say.  
  
Tom sighed, “It may be, but I still have more game.”  
  
***  
It’s weird to Leslie to be in City Hall and not be in Ben’s office. Since the government has been shut down she only populated City Hall to meet with Ben. The contents of her own office had been transferred to her home at the beginning of the shut down so she had no other reason to be here besides Ben.  
  
Until today.  
  
She checks her watch. Ben’s plane would have taken off from Indianapolis by now. She imagines he was somewhere over Kentucky and she wonders if he is a good traveler, patient and content, or impatient and ready to be done with the mechanic of going someplace. He’d been reluctant to send her his flight information and what he was going to wear on the plane, couldn’t see why she needed it.  
  
“What if your plane crashes and I have to identify your body?”  
  
“That’s unhelpful,” he deadpans.  
  
Leslie had rolled her eyes and demanded the information just the same. What if he needed her?  
  
“But Chris is going to pick me up. He’ll be in Indianapolis for meetings,” Ben said, but Leslie pretended not to hear him.  
  
Leslie let herself imagine what Ben was doing on the plane - reading or trying to sleep - to take her thoughts off her own nervousness. She is sitting in the waiting room outside Paul’s office. It had taken her a week to talk herself into scheduling this meeting. She hadn’t even told Ben about it. She needed to do this on her own. Once it was over with though - he’d be the first person she’d call and that thought made her happy.  
  
“Leslie, what are you doing here?” Paul came out of his office.  
  
Leslie set aside her padfolio, “We had an appointment. I made an appointment. I called and I -,”  
  
“Well, come in then.”  
  
He turned and Leslie stood. She pressed her palms flat to her thighs. There was nothing to be nervous here. Ben had told her a thousand times: this was about making more of a difference, about fulfilling her dreams. This isn’t her giving up on her friends or abandoning her post. She can’t be spooked.  
  
“What can I do for you Leslie?” Paul sits behind his desk, folds his hands and leans on his elbows.  
  
“Paul, you know I love my job, right?” Leslie starts talking before she even sinks into her seat.  
  
“Um, yeah,” he’s caught off guard, but Leslie soilders on.  
  
“And I’m not saying I don’t want my job - I mean that’s kind of what I’m saying, but not really though it could be construed that way.”  
  
“Leslie, what are you saying?”  
  
“I want to be assistant city manager.”  
  
His eyebrows tip upwards and panic strikes through her. She’d talk about this fear with Ben - that she’d be laughed out of the room - but he assured that wouldn’t happen and now it was and…  
  
“Leslie, that job doesn’t exist.”  
  
“But it has.”  
  
Paul nods, “It has, but we’re in a budget crisis. I’m going to struggle to hold onto jobs let alone create new ones.”  
  
“But this job, with me in it, can save the city money. I have a list of reasons -,” and she reaches for her padfolio, but Paul holds up his hands.  
  
“Leslie, even if you convinced me of the need for an assistant city manager, I couldn’t hire you.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
He looks sheepish, “You don’t have enough experience.”  
  
“But I can do this. I know it.” Her meetings with Ben, their endless discussions of government bureaucracy, had convinced her of that. She had what it took - that spark, the endless fountain of ideas, and the drive. Ben had helped ground her a little - open up the complexity of balance and responsible governing.  
  
“I don’t doubt you can do it, but I would need more on your resume to justify the hire. You have a lot of experience spending money and if I brought you in I’d need to see that you can generate revenue, make cuts, and do the hard work of overseeing a whole city and not just a small department.”  
  
It’s the same thing Ben said to her that first day they met. He called her irresponsible and now Paul was too. Is that how people really saw her?  
  
“So I need to pull off an event that makes money to prove myself?”  
  
“We’re not talking about a lemonade stand, Leslie. I’m talking a large scale project.”  
  
“Go big or go home.” Leslie says quietly.  
  
“What?”  
  
She shakes her head, “It’s nothing. Just something someone told me once. Go big or go home.”  
  
Paul stands and walks around the desk. It is clear the meeting is over and that is good thing because all she wants to do is sink into a hole. She wishes she’d told Ann about this and could call her now, but she’s not even in town. Chris whisked her away to a cabin in northern Wisconsin for a romantic weekend, Ron was at a whittling conference, and Ben was on a plane. She’d never felt so entirely alone.  
  
Paul offers her a hand, “Leslie, I wish I had better things to say, but I don’t think softening the truth is helpful. You’re one hell of a worker. Don’t forget that.”  
  
Right as he says it, Leslie thinks But I don’t want to be just a worker… and she doesn’t see Paul coming toward, falling on her, hand grabbing onto the first thing he can find and it’s her boob.  
  
Later, as she watches Paul being loaded into an ambulance, Leslie thinks this might be the worst day of her life. Unfortunately, she’s wrong. It’s going to get much worse.  
  
***  
Ben gets the text message right as he gets off the elevator onto the floor of Karla’s apartment. It was Leslie and he can’t help smile.  
  
 _Headline tomorrow: Knope gets groped by city manager on his way to a heart attack. Call for the full story._  
  
Ben stops in the hall. He’s tempted to head back to the elevator, lean against the corner, and call Leslie. Really tempted. But no, he’s here to see Karla. So he compromises and sends her a text back:  
  
 _Will call later. In the meantime, is it wrong to say good catch?_  
  
And she writes back just as he stops in front of Karla’s door and just as he reads it and laughs, the door opens and Karla is standing there looking at him with wild eyes.  
  
***  
“I just can’t believe it…” Karla must have said it a hundred times in the last hour. Ben tips his eyes up at her. He is sitting on her couch and she is pacing in front of him in gym shorts and a sports bra. She’d been working out. He saw her punching bag still swaying in the second bedroom. She’d heard his laughing at Leslie’s text, looked through the peep hole, and caught him completely off guard.  
  
So much for the surprise Leslie had insisted on.  
  
“I just can’t believe it…” Karla said again.  
  
Ben stands and catches her by the hips, “What can’t you believe?”  
  
She tips her face up to him, “That you’re here.”  
  
“Is that a good thing?”  
  
She draws a breath, “Yes, yes, yes,” she runs her fingers through her hair, “I’ve been wanting you to come but I didn’t want to be a needy girlfriend. And you’ve just been so preoccupied lately that I thought…”  
  
“Thought what?” He frowns.  
  
Karla buries her forehead into his chest, “That you’d found something you liked better, you know, than D.C. and me and our plans. I thought maybe you had second thoughts about leaving Indiana.”  
  
Ben wraps both arms around her, brings her into the concave of his body, and presses her close to him. He holds onto her and he can feel Karla relax against him, and he knows she thinks she’s gotten the answer to her fears.  
  
***  
“Whatever happened to that woman who kept bugging you? The one in the lowly department who was such a pain in the ass…” Karla says. Ben’s eyes were closed and he doesn’t open them, just lies perfectly still.  
  
They are in bed, naked, with dinner settling in their stomachs and the scent of sex lingering in the air. His hands are locked over his head and he’d been trying to turn off his mind which is turning over with all the news Leslie had been texting him all evening: Paul is in the hospital, Chris has taken the job as interim (how they got a hold of him in a cabin in northern Wisconsin he has no idea), she’s sure Chris and Ann are going to get engaged this weekend, and she has the best idea ever for generating revenue, and how did he like D.C.?  
  
That last one stayed with him. He hadn’t answered it yet because he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say. All night, he’d been weighing everything: the time it took to get across town for dinner, the food at the restaurant, the way Karla had stopped half way through their conversation to mingle with some bigwigs who were at the bar, and how much it bothered him that she hadn’t introduced him.  
  
They’d been talking about Pawnee, the edited version. It was Pawnee without Leslie Knope which left the picture wanting and Ben isn’t surprised that Karla is critical of the town: of it’s citizens who are weird ( _But they care, Ben protests_ ), of it’s government officials who are incompetent ( _Competence means different things in different places_ ), and she completely doesn’t get the raccoons ( _to be honest, Ben doesn’t either. Why doesn’t someone shoot them?_ ).  
  
“Oh her,” he says. He props open an eye and sees that Karla isn’t even looking at him. She’s reading a magazine and drinking a glass of water. She never was good about relaxing after sex. It was always onto the next task, “she actually ended up being pretty helpful and got less annoying.”  
  
There that sounded innocent enough. He can see his sister’s stink eye trained on him across hundreds of miles and knows he’s crossed a line into terrible territory now, but he just doesn’t care. He can’t talk about Leslie with her.  
  
His phone rings. He glances and sees Leslie’s monkier flash on the screen. Karla isn’t looking in his direction and he rolls out of bed, says, “Chris,” and steps into the living room.  
  
“Hey -,” He answers it and looks over his shoulder at the lightened bedroom before stepping onto the balcony and shutting the apartment and Karla out, “how’s it going?”  
  
***  
Ben can’t complain that the next two days are bad. In fact, they’re really nice. He has fun with Karla; they talk politics and government and it’s stimulating. The sex is great  _(though he never realized how muscular she is. This isn’t something he should complain about. Something soft might be nice though…_ ). She works some and this gives Ben time to wander around D.C., soak it up. He likes the bustle, the diversity, the crowds, but it’s not soul finishing ( _that’s a Leslie-ism_ ). It doesn’t make him feel like he’s arrived. It’s just another place, damn impressive, but still just a place.  
  
And the fact that his days are regularly punctuated by texts from Leslie doesn’t hurt. She keeps him minutely informed about the happenings in Pawnee ( _Paul tried to check himself out the hospital, Council Houserman’s brother returned to the land he sold to Sweetums and won’t leave what is now a construction site, some guy chained himself to the flag pole outside City Hall in order to get Twilight made Pawnee’s official book, etc._ ) Ben doesn’t mind, appreciates it in fact. It seems everything is happening without him…  
  
Karla asks who keeps texting him and he tells her Chris. The lie is easier than it should be and that bothers him, but he pushes it aside and tells himself that everything he is texting with Leslie he’d text with Chris if Chris ever seemed concerned about anything but his image…  
  
“Do you ever look at the people in the towns you work in and feel sorry for them?”  
  
Ben looks up from his book. Karla is curled at the other end of the couch, engrossed in her own reading for work. They’re sharing a glass of wine. “What?”  
  
“Do you ever feel sorry for them?” she shifts and sits up, “I mean, like they’re lives are so small and I don’t know, removed from all the things that matter?”  
  
He tips his head, “Like what?”  
  
“You know, all the decisions that make our country function. They’re not even in a big city like Chicago or New York. How can they be okay living lives that move so slowly when the world moves so fast?” It’s not said with contempt, but honest wonder.  
  
It comes upon him with a sudden clarity that he’ll wish for later, when everything really gets muddled, that Jenny is right ( _he’ll never live this one down_ ): Karla says something and Ben makes it his own gospel. For half a second he begins to see it her way; D.C. can do that, he supposes, convince you this is the center of the world. But in the second half of that second, that glorious other end of the tick tock, he sees it clearly: Karla thinks he’s like her. She sees him as an ally, partner in this overly ambitious life that is fueled by some inner demon. She’s convinced him that he needed to redeem himself from Icetown, that the world was watching, when Ben was pretty sure the world didn’t give a flying fuck about his life.  
  
“Um, I never thought about it before,” he says in a muddled voice because he’s not really there. He’s a million miles away trying to figure how the hell he got to this place and he doesn’t think it was that conference a year ago when he first met Karla. No this started long before that. Sometime when he lost track of what the hell he wanted out of life.  
  
If he’d been better at handling anything he’d have gotten up right there and walked out, but he didn’t. He still botched any and every situation and he pretends to go back to his book, his thoughts swimming and hazy.  
  
***  
  
Ben is woken up when something small and hard whacks him in the back.  
  
“What the hell…” he sits up in bed. The room is dark but the door is open and Karla stands over him, her silhouette highlighted by the light pouring in.  
  
“You bastard…”  
  
“What is going on?” Ben sits up, but Karla launches something else at him - a shoe this time, he’s pretty sure it was his phone the first time - and he ducks, “Are you crazy?”  
  
“Crazy? You think I’m crazy?” her voice is shrill and close to breaking, “Yes, I’m crazy for thinking everything is alright between us, to think you’re in this, after…” she points at the phone which landed next to him on the bed, “after you’re texting her. Taking her phone calls.”  
  
It sinks in. Shit.  
  
“You looked at my phone?”  
  
“It kept going off at two in the morning and you were out of it and so I was going to text Chris to tell him it could wait till morning, but then it’s from a woman and I check your call log and there are hundreds of them. All weekend when you’re supposed to be here with me. All summer and the worst is that you’re so…so damn sweet with her. It’s sick. Disgusting.”  
  
Ben rubbed a hand over his mouth and says quietly, “We’re just friends. Nothing has happened.”  
  
Karla reaches over and flips on a light. Her face is streaked with tears and her makeup is running something ugly. Her hair, those wild and honey colored curls, stand on end. She looks like Medusa spurned and part of Ben has to bite back a laugh.  
  
“Say that to my face.”  
  
“It’s true. Nothing has happened.”  
  
“Has happened. You say it like you want it too.”  
  
“I don’t.” He says it so gravely he almost believes himself.  
  
Karla’s laugh is caustic and she turns away from him, hugging her arms around her waist.  
  
“And I’ve done everything for you. I’ve pushed you. I’ve listened to you whine that you hate you’re job so I get you one out here…”  
  
“Wait, Harry called me because we’re college buddies and he knew…”  
  
“Are you crazy? I had to convince Harry to consider you for the job. I sold you. Told him you were up to muster and now I find out you’re stuck on some girl back in Indiana.”  
  
Ben’s throat tightens, “Okay. Fine. If that’s how you see me then I’m glad I know now before I uproot my entire life for you.” He stands, reaches for his jeans lying on the floor.  
  
“Uproot your life? If I hadn’t pushed you you would still be auditing failure towns like Pawnee. What kind of life would you have without me?”  
He buttons his jeans and finds his t-shirt. It was wrinkled, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care about his stuff. Karla could have the pleasure of burning it for all he cared. He only needed his computer bag, wallet, and cell phone.  
  
“I don’t know,” he says honestly, “But I’m ready to find out.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“I don’t want to be with someone who has no idea who I am.”  
  
“Ben, you have no idea who you are.” She finally took in the fact that he was dressed, “Where are you going?”  
  
“To the airport. If I can’t get a flight I’ll get a hotel room.” He steps toward the door.  
  
“You can’t walk out on me.” Karla blocks his path with her body and he gets a good look at her in the light. She looks come undone and part of him feels the overwhelming guilt of his part in that, “You can’t leave me for some backwoods girl from the hicks.”   
  
Ben swallows, “I’m not going to do this. I’m not going to defend myself to you. I should have told you about Leslie, but I’m being honest when I say nothing has happened. We’re just friends.”  
  
She juts out her chin, “I don’t believe you.”  
  
Ben waves his hands in a ta-da motion, “And I don’t care. I’m done with this. Goodbye Karla.”  
  
And Ben sidesteps her, grabs his computer bag, phone, and wallet, and stuffs his feet into a pair of loafers he’s left by the door. Karla follows him, shouting insults and accusations, but Ben doesn’t bite. He gets to the door, turns, and says to her, “I really am sorry.”  
  
“I’ll show you sorry you -,” but Ben doesn’t hear her. He’s already down the hall and making a phone call.  
  
***  
  
Leslie doesn’t ask when she gets the call at the crack of dawn from a weary Ben to come pick him up in Indianapolis cause he’s about the board his connection. She doesn’t ask him why he’s coming home early or why it had to be in the middle of the night ( _she’s up anyway_ ). She doesn’t even ask when he asks her to bring a bottle of liquor - anything really, whatever she has on hand. She finds a bottle of tequila left over from she doesn’t know when and loads her car with snacks and sets out toward Indianapolis, unsure of what she’s going to find.  
  
The only thing she does is tease a little before hanging up, “I told you you needed me.”


	4. Chapter 4

When she picks him up at the terminal, Ben looks like an sane person gone mad.  
  
He opens the passenger door and slides into the car before she even has come to a complete stop, "Just drive," he mutters and Leslie obeys.  
  
They're on the highway before he says anything else, just mutters, "Liquor?"  
  
She points to the tote bag where she stored the tequila and a plastic coffee mug with a lid. She's happy he is smart enough to keep the tequila below his knees and out of sight of anyone passing by. He sloshes some onto her carpet and she lets it go. Once he gets the lid of the coffee mug on, he tips his head back and drinks. After the third gulp Leslie makes a noise, but Ben holds up a hand. He finishes with a "Ahhhh," and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.  
  
Like she said, a sane person gone mad.  
  
After a long minute he says quietly, "Karla and I broke up."  
  
"Oh," Leslie says carefully, "did she break up with you?"  
  
He hiccups, "Nope. Mutual."  
  
"Amicable?"  
  
"Nope."  
  
"Okay."  
  
And that's it for another half hour. He refills the mug with tequila and drinks again before speaking.  
  
"She had to beg for me to get that job. Said without her I was nothing. Said I wasn't driven."  
  
"Is that why you broke up with her?"  
  
"Why would I want to be with someone who thinks so little of me?"  
  
"You deserve more."  
  
“Yeah,” he looks away, out the window, as if he isn’t completely sure.  
  
It’s a while before Leslie has the nerve to ask, does it while staring straight out at the road, “Why’d she break up with you?”  
  
Ben doesn’t pause, just says, “I wasn’t sure I wanted to move to D.C.,” and tips the coffee mug back. Fills it up a third time.  
  
“Ah,” Leslie casts an eye at the tequila and up at him and chooses the second thing she wants to say instead, “Where are you going to move?”  
  
“Don’t know,” this time his voice is harder and Leslie wonders why.  
  
“You should move to Pawnee. We can find you a job and it’ll be great. I mean, that’s what I would do cause Pawnee’s the greatest town in America, possibly the world. But if you’re not sure you should make a pro/con list. That’s what I do when I have a decision to make. We can do it together right now. There’s paper in the-,”  
  
“Leslie.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Shut up, okay?”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
***  
  
Ben tips his head back against the seat rest and closes his eyes. He’s grateful for the darkness and quiet. He knows Leslie is biting her lip, that she wanted so badly to fix it, but there just wasn’t any fixing it.  
  
Jenny said the same thing when he called her. He stood outside Karla’s building and tried to hail a cab in the middle of the night. It occurred to him to phone Leslie; in fact it was his first thought and that is why he didn’t. It didn’t seem prudent to call the woman your ex-girlfriend just accused you of cheating with even if those accusations were wrong ( _though not without basis_ ). So instead, he called his big sister and the one person who wouldn’t feel sorry for him. At. All.  
  
“Can I just say it just once? Please?” Jenny said when he finished the story.  
  
He closed his eyes, “Yes.”  
  
“I am sorry.”  
  
His eyes opened, “What?”  
  
“I am sorry this happened to you.”  
  
“I thought you were going to say told you so,”    
  
She laughed, “Oh, I’m going to say that a dozen times. But for the record I am sorry you’re hurt. It always sucks to break up, no matter if it’s a relief.”  
  
“I don’t know if I’d call it a relief. I wasn’t miserable in the relationship.”  
  
“Ben, you didn’t have a relationship. You had sex. That’s not a relationship. What you and I have, that’s a relationship. What you and the girl have, that’s a relationship. What you and Karla had was akin to what you and Chris have except you got naked with her, but that doesn’t mean you would tell either of them how you really feel.”  
  
“It was the closest thing to a relationship I’ve had since high school.”  
  
“Yes, you stopped sleeping with random girls in random towns in Indiana when you met Karla. She did manage to take the sleaze out of my brother.”  
  
Ben rubbed the space between his eyebrows with two fingers, “I wasn’t a sleaze.  A long distance relationship with any of those girls wasn’t practical given the travel and…”  
  
He heard Jenny shift the phone to the other ear and he imagined her sitting up in bed, the light on her bedside turned on, and the shadows of their parent’s old bedroom shifting on the wall. He used to climb into their bed when there were monsters in his nightmares. Now it was Jenny’s room and she was the one he turned too.  
  
“I call bullshit. You dated around because it confirmed the weird me-against-the-world nomadic identity you adopted after Icetown. And you dated Karla because she was actually smart which was more than any of those other women. I assume she was decent in the kinky sex department too.”  
  
“Oh my gosh, why do you keep talking about my sex life?”  
  
“I can read between the lines. Ben, let’s stay on subject.”  
  
“Which is?”  
  
“Your failings as a human being.”  
  
“Great.”  
  
“No, I’m serious Ben. Karla wasn’t the right woman, but she was a step in the right direction. You know now that what you’ve been doing since college isn’t what you want out of life and now it’s time to figure out what you do want.”  
  
“And how do I do that, Oprah?”  
  
“Hey, don’t knock what you don’t know!” Jenny laughed and then her voice softened, “You do the opposite from everything you’ve been doing. You stay in one place for a while. Put down some roots. Make real friends and figure out that once people really get to know you, they’ll love you.”  
  
“And don’t slouch,” Ben mummered.  
  
“What?”  
  
“It’s what Mom used to say to me. Told me not to slouch and to remember you can never get back a first impression. Said if I could remember those two things in life I’d go far.”  
  
“And I don’t think she was wrong.”  
  
“Yeah, well she had to be right about something, right?”  
  
Jenny pretended not to hear that. There were things they still didn’t agree on and their parents were at the top of that list.  
  
He blew out a breath, “So I need to let people in. That’s how I’m going to stop feeling like shit?”  
  
“I think so. It sounds like you’re already doing it - with Pawnee and the girl.”  
  
“Yeah,” Ben’s laugh was bitter, caustic even, and it took Jenny by surprise.  
  
He told her about butcher paper, how his motel room looked like a madmen’s lair, but that it felt right to write these things down. He told her how Leslie has these different faces and how good he’s gotten at guessing her mood, her thoughts, before she says something. And still she infuriates him a little because she remains resolutely positive even in the face of reality and he hates how she can empty him of thoughts with a look, a second glance, like he’s caught and the scariest part is that he doesn’t care. He tells her all of this and more because it tumbles out of him, jumps out really, and even he’s surprised by it.  
  
When he was finished, she was silent for a moment and then said, “Oh, Ben you’ve got it bad.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“How you’d fall?”  
  
Ben exhaled, “I think from the moment I saw her. When I look at her everything kinda shorts out, like the reception in my brain has gone out. When I saw her it’s not like I had any real thoughts. It wasn’t an epiphany. I just didn’t know myself. If that makes any sense.” He scrunched his nose.  
  
“It does.” Jenny said softly.  
  
“It wasn’t like she made a good first impression,” Ben continued, “I still thought she was a pain-in-the-ass. I still think it sometimes. But there’s…there’s just something…”  
  
“That has you tripping over her?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Oh dear,” Jenny sighed, “Ben you can’t go to her. You can’t tell her how you feel. Not yet.”  
  
“What?” Something in Ben dropped to his knees and he shook involuntarily. The thought wasn’t conscious yet, but he knew it had been swirling around in him: that without Karla he was free to go to Leslie.  
  
“Ben, you’re a wreak. You’ve got to figure yourself out. She deserves a whole you and anything you do now will just make her a rebound.”  
  
“But I want to be with her,” he said.  
  
“You can be the best friend she needs, give her that because you care for her, and get your house in order. Figure out what you want from life, what kind of person you want to be, and then maybe you’ll deserve her.”  
  
It was like someone telling you you’re going to loose the race before you even start. Ben rubbed a hand over his face, “I am not a screw-up.”  
  
“Of course you’re not, but you’re still haunted and do you want to put that on her?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Exactly.”  
  
“So just friends?”  
  
“For now. I think it’s the best thing you can do for her and for yourself.”  
  
Ben wanted to protest: what if Leslie could help? What if she were willing to bear his burdens? Wasn’t that what a relationship was about? None of us are perfect, he wanted to say. It’s not fair to him. What if she finds someone else or if she doesn’t care at all?  
  
All of it made Ben want to walk away because the risk was too high. What would happen to him if…fuck his life, he thought. Why did it feel like there was a cord and if someone tugged it, the whole carpet would unravel, piece by piece?  
  
“Great. Just great.”  
  
So Ben keeps his eyes closed and let’s the alcohol swim over him on the ride back to Pawnee. He wonders if he should do it anyway, just blurt out, “I’m in love with you,” and bear the consequences. But he knows Jenny is right. He wouldn’t want Leslie dating a guy like him right now. He knows it and feels its weight, the heaviness of looking in the mirror and seeing yourself as you truly are, and it only makes him want to, for just this night, drink until he forgets entirely.  
  
***  
  
“This isn’t my house,” Ben points a finger to his chest and slurs the last part of house so it comes out like a long line of z’s, “It’s your house.”  
  
“I know,” Leslie says, unbuckles her seat belt and reaches across for Ben’s. When she does her face drops and her cheek brushes his shoulder.  
  
He reaches across his body and pats her awkwardly on the shoulder, “Nice Leslie.”  
  
“Thanks,” Leslie is annoyed. He drank the entire bottle of tequila on the two hour drive home from Indianapolis and proceeded to pass out right when they’d gotten to town. She’d checked her chart and he wasn’t in danger of alcohol poisoning, but she didn’t dare leave him alone in a hotel room so she brought him home. It wasn’t the drunkenness that annoyed her. It’s that Ben was holding something back - something, she guessed, that related to why he decided to drink himself into oblivion, and if she was going to take care of his ass she kind of thought she deserved to know it. Plus, she didn’t like not knowing something about Ben. It felt wrong.  
  
“You’re my favorite Leslie, did you know that?” He shouts as she rounds the car. He’s trying to climb over the driver seat and through the window but the glass is rolled up, “Help, help, I’m stuck!” He pounds on the window.  
  
“Ben, over here.” She opens the car door on his side and he places two feet gingerly on the ground, hands on the frame of the car, and tips his face up to her.  
  
Even inebriated, Leslie thinks he’s adorable. The way his brown eyes look up at her and his hair falls a little across his forehead in a way that compells her to brush it back and then, “Ba-ba-boyee.” He giggles, Leslie rolls her eyes, and leaves him to follow her.  
  
Why was she looking at him like that? This was Ben, one of her best friend and co-worker. He just broke up with his girlfriend ( _and got dumped; it was all a bit confusing for her_ ) and he needed her to be a friend not some silly school girl with a crush.  
  
“Just leave me here to die,”  
  
Leslie turns. Ben is lying in her front yard, having made it two steps and fallen into the grass, legs spread eagle like he was making a snow angel, “Leave me!” he shrieks.  
  
“Ben, stand up.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“I don’t deserve to stand or to live. I’m a failure.”  
  
Leslie stands over him and he squints up at her, “You can’t believe what Karla said.” She tries to gentle her voice.  
  
“Jenny said it. Said I have to order a house or get it to do something. I can’t remember,” he says, “She said I have to wait and then I can do it.”  
  
“Do what?” Leslie bends and reaches out two hands to help him up. He uses her as leverage and stands, pulling her into his chest with a quiet  _umphf_. Something about the movement seems to sober him because he is looking down at her with a half turned smile and focused gaze.  
  
“Hey,” he says under a breath, almost a whisper in her ear. His hands flex around hers and entwine their fingers together, his thumb skipping across the knuckles on her right hand.  
  
Leslie is the sober one.  
  
She is the rational one, the one in control so why is her heart beating in her throat?  
  
Why is it so hard for her to swallow?  
  
And why is she suddenly aware, viscerally so, of his hands? They are large and firm and smooth; they are a heavy weight around her own, like a solid foundation. He squeezes  and Leslie finds the groove between his pointer and thumb, tickling the hairs splayed across his skin. When he flexes his wrists she can feel the muscles in his forearm stretch and then she is aware of the curve of his arm as he loosens his grip to embrace her.  
  
She knows she needs to stop him because he is drunk, because he is one of her best friends, because they are standing in her front yard.  
  
But she doesn’t want too. Her curiosity is piqued. She wonders what it would be like to kiss him…  
  
And the curiosity sobers her up faster than a bucket of cold water.  
  
She backs up, away, and out of reach. If Ben is disappointed, she can’t tell because he is closing his eyes and rubbing his temple, “Let’s get you to bed,” she says.  
  
“Yeah,” he says without looking at her.  
  
***  
  
Ben doesn’t do hangovers gracefully. The first time he got drunk he was seventeen and his father found him behind the dumpster of the hospital; the news about Jenny had been particularly bad that day. The hangover was having to watch his mother apologize to Jenny’s doctors for her son who tried to wheelchair race down the halls. The summer after Icetown, those months before he could escape to a college out-of-state, is a daze because he spent most of it buzzed on beer. The hangover was seeing Cindy Eckheart, the one girl who’d stuck by him through the impeachment, cry and say he was a loser. And that was the last time he’d ever let himself drink himself into a stupor, until now.  
  
The morning light filters in and he squints, trying to shield his eyes with an arm. It takes him a moment to realize where he is. Actually he has no idea where he is except that it’s a bed he’s never been in before, in a room he’s never been in before. He feels under a quilt and realizes he’s not wearing pants, but he does have on boxers and a t-shirt. Okay, how wild and crazy could it have been if he put back on his clothes?  
  
His jeans are draped over a chair acting as a nightstand and it only takes Ben half a second to see the Idea Binder, legal pads, and several 1980’s editions of the Pawnee Journal to know whose bed he is in.  
  
Shit. Shit. Shit.  
  
This was the opposite of good.  
  
There is the sound of feet falling across the threshold and the door swings open. Ben sits up straight, pulls the quilt up over him in some weird attempt at modesty. And in that half second his heart sinks because if something happened he doesn’t remember it and of all things, that he’d want to remember…  
  
Leslie peaks in, just a head and then her shoulders and finally she stands in front of him. She leans against the door frame, a hand on a hip. She’s wearing pajama pants, adorable lilac pinstripe ones and a white cotton robe over a matching tank top. Her feet are bare and Ben notices that she’s changed her nail polish. It’s pearl pink this time.  
  
The view isn’t sexy, but it is intimate in a way that is new between them. It makes him swallow and wish, hope, pray really that nothing happened because he doesn’t remember last night and the picture of her there, in the doorway, takes the air out of his lungs. He doesn’t want to loose that picture.  
  
She tilts her head and he closes his eyes.  
  
“Morning,” there is a grin in her voice.  
  
“This may be the stupidest thing to say right now, but what happened last night?”  He opens a single eye and Leslie walks in the room, sinks onto the far opposite corner of the bed.  
  
“What do you remember?”  
  
“You picking me up from the airport,” a vague sense came over him, “did I lay down in your front yard?”  
  
“Yes. You wanted me to leave you there.”  
  
He let out a breath, “Wow. I am so sorry.”  
  
She laughs, “It’s okay. I didn’t give up on you.”  
  
Even though it was said lightly and as a joke, the words teased a smile out of him. He squints, the light is still very bright and her yellow walls don’t help, “In danger of making you upset, how exactly did I end up in your bed?”  
  
“I wanted you to be comfortable.”  
  
“And my pants?”  
  
“Those you took off yourself.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
“You tried to take other,” her eyes flick down for the briefest moment, “things off, but I managed to talk you out of it.”  
  
Ben swallows, “I really am sorry.”  
  
“It’s okay. You had a hard night.” She looks down, plays with the cuff of her pajama pants.  
  
A silence hangs between them. Ben’s eyes slant over her and his throat tightens up. There it is, the explanation he didn’t give, the breach between them. He can feel it, a gaping hole, and it kills him a little. But in the morning light, seeing her again in the flesh, Ben realizes that more than anything in the world he wants to take care of her. He wants to hold her and see her smile and make sure she knows how great she is. And that fact renders him silent now.  
  
They’ve lapsed into a silence and Ben realizes he needs to say something. She’s watching him with careful eyes, trying to read his thoughts, and that could be very dangerous right now. So he clears his throat and the question occurs to him, “Where did you sleep?”  
  
“Oh, on the couch downstairs. I checked in on you a whole bunch. I was afraid you might get sick and need some help…” she said.  
  
“Wow, I really am sorry I put you out like that.”  
  
She shrugs, “That’s what best friends are for, right?”  
  
He sits up straight, “I thought Ann is your best friend.” As soon as it is out of his mouth he cringes a little. It’s so middle school.  
  
“Ann is my BFF, best friends forever. You’re my best friend.”  
  
“Oh,” he says with mock seriousness, “I didn’t know there were categories.”  
  
“There are,” she stands with a solemn look on her face, “sacred categories of friendship.”  
  
“Well then,” he smiles up at her, hands still fisted around the top of the quilt, “I definitely owe you.”  
  
“Oh yes,” Leslie says with mock seriousness, “Starting with breakfast at JJ’s…”  
  
She backs out of the room and before she’s gone, she gives Ben the smallest wave. Ben waves back and lets his hand drop awkwardly onto the bed. He exhales. This is going to be even harder than he thought.  
  
***  
  
The problem with secretly courting Leslie Knope is that she might be the most thoughtful person ever.  
  
He tries to surprise her with lunch, takeout from JJ’s, and she shows up at his office with his favorite ( _homemade chicken noodle soup, though she admits Ann made it_ ).    
  
He finds out the independent theater in Sneerling is showing a bio-documentary on Eleanor Roosevelt, drives over to buy tickets, and runs into her camped out ( _the only one_ ) in line for tickets for both of them.  
  
He orders a civics book he read in college, a little known title, and when Leslie finds the copy in his briefcase before he can give it to her, she exclaims, “It came!” The real copy she ordered for him comes the next day.  
  
When Ben complains to Jenny, she tells him to be more creative than meals, movies, and books. She warns him romantic gestures aren’t going to mean diddley squat unless Ben wedges himself out of friend category.  
  
“Figure yourself out and the rest will be easy,” she advises.  
  
Yeah, sure it is.  
  
But Ben is willing to try anything so now he’s launching a personal reclamation project too.  
  
He takes a cue from Leslie and draws a line down the middle of a fresh piece of butcher paper.  
  
On one side he writes: Put down roots. Make friends. Let people in.  
  
On the other: Surprise Leslie, Make her laugh, Render her speechless, Tell her about Jenny, Help her succeed at something, Tell her how I feel.  
  
Once he’s done, he sits back on the edge of his bed and surveys the paper. Nods and exhales.  
  
He can do this.  
  
He hopes.  
  
***

“Ben?” Leslie says from across the table.  
  
“Yeah?” Ben looks up from the book he’s reading. They are sitting on Leslie’s front porch.  Ben dragged out a table from a spare bedroom ( _don’t ask him why she had a table in there_ ) and there is  a pot of chili between them and wine glasses at their elbows. It’s Friday, a week since he got back from D.C. and seven until he officially has no reason to be in Pawnee. The thought has been criss crossing his mind all day. He knows Pawnee is where he wants to try this out, put down some roots, but he’s not sure how to explain it to Leslie without telling her the truth.  
  
But it’s Friday, their normal “date” night, as Leslie calls it. When she called him yesterday to suggest a quiet night in, with wine and books, he stood there a long time after he’d agreed and hung up. This is not normal.    
  
But he didn’t say no, did he?  
  
Leslie licks her lips, “Remember I told you about that idea I had for generating revenue?” Ben must look confused because she rolls her eyes, “in the text message about Paul, remember?”  
  
“Oh, yeah. What is it?”  
  
She holds up a finger, jumps up, and comes back with a funny looking flag draped across her.  
  
“Doesn’t that hang in City Hall?”  
  
“Yeah, I took it.”  
  
He gives her a look and she ignores it, waits a moment as if she expects the flag to jolt him to perfect clarity.  
  
“What?” he shrugs.  
  
“Ben,” she stomps a foot, “the Harvest Festival, come on…”  
  
“I didn’t grow up here.” He reminds her.  
  
That is all Leslie needs to launch into what Ben can tell is a well rehearsed presentation complete with sound track, speeches, and a diorama to rival any 5th grader’s.  
  
At the end, Ben is resting his head on his palm, his mouth hiding a little behind his hand.  
  
“Well?” For the first time, she looks nervous as if something in her hinges on his answer and Ben can’t lie, he loves that more than a little bit. He thinks about his list and Help her succeed at something and he can’t deny it’s a damn good idea.  
  
“We should do it.”  
  
She shrieks and throws her arms around him, dropping the pumpkin she’s holding ( _he’s not sure where she got a pumpkin in July_ ), and it’s awkward with him sitting and her stooping, but Ben ropes his arms around her, lets his chin find the curve of her neck and breathes, giving himself one stolen moment.  
  
***  
  
Leslie rubs her hands together and takes a deep breath. She doesn’t know why she’s nervous but she is. She goes through it in her head, the points Ben helped her come up with to convince Chris to approve the Harvest Festival. They’re good and the numbers, all Ben’s contribution, make it sound plausible, even a home run. But it’s more than convincing Chris. She wants to impress him. He’s acting city manager and if she can pull this off by the time Paul comes back, Chris may be willing to put in a good word.  
  
“Hey,” Ben comes into the waiting room outside Chris’ new office. He smiles at her and sinks down into the chair next to her, “You okay? You look like you might be sick.”  
  
She swallows, “No, I’m just a little nervous. That’s all.”  
  
He touches her elbow, “There’s no need to be nervous. You’re going to do great and your ideas are solid. He’ll say yes.”  
  
Leslie feigns a smile and Ben seems satisfied. She doesn’t tell him her real reason for nerves, her desperate desire to impress and prove herself. No, she keeps those fears tightly wound within herself.  
  
***  
  
“I think Chris might propose,” Ann says it and Leslie almost chokes on her whipped cream. They’re sitting in a booth at JJ’s, celebrating Leslie’s successfully approved project.  
  
“What?”  
  
“I think he’s going to propose.” Ann looks down and away, at her plate.  
  
Leslie waits a beat for her best friend to say something else, but she doesn’t. They each chew silently for a long time and Leslie tries to piece it together: Ann married, to Chris, the happiest person on earth. She shuddered. It would be like living inside the  _It’s a Small World_  ride, forever. Not that she didn’t like Chris, didn’t like them together, but marriage? It was so serious, so soon. Surely Ann wouldn’t say yes…  
  
“I think I’m going to say yes…”  
  
Nothing.  
  
“Leslie, say something,” Ann pleads.  
  
“Are you pregnant?”  
  
Ann balks, “What is that supposed to mean?”  
  
“I just can’t see any other reason why you would marry him unless you’re knocked up.”  
  
“I’m in love with him.”  
  
Leslie shakes her head, “You can’t be. It’s too fast.”  
  
“Just because you’re taking it slow with Ben…”  
  
“I’m taking it slow because…” Leslie caught herself. Where did that come from? She wasn’t taking it anywhere, but Ann’s eyes are narrowed and Leslie finishes lamely, “because that’s what responsible adults do.”  
  
“No, that’s what people do who are afraid.”  
  
Leslie sucks in a breath, “I”m not afraid.”  
  
Wait, how did they end up talking about her? About a pretend relationship that doesn’t exist because Ben is Ben and not…She doesn’t finish the thought because Ann is throwing down her napkin, standing, and stalking toward the bathroom.  
  
***  
  
“And then she said that I’m being pushy, trying to tell her how to live her life and why can’t I be happy for her? But doesn’t she realize that that’s what I’m trying to do, stop her from making a mistake?” Leslie blows into a tissue.  
  
Ben sits on her couch and stares at her in disbelief. His arm is draped across the back of the couch and she is sitting on the middle cushion, his knee touching her thigh. She can’t see straight, the tears blinding her purview. Ann had been so angry, furious really. Said Leslie didn’t want her to be happy when that was the opposite of true…  
  
“It’s not that I don’t like Chris, but she doesn’t know what she’s doing. She hasn’t even made a list…” She blubbers and Ben grimaces, hands her another tissue, “And then I asked her what would they do when Paul comes back and Chris goes back to his job at the state auditors office and she said she’d move to Indianapolis, that she could be a nurse anywhere.”  
  
That is the final thing, the hiccup that makes Leslie come undone. She tips over sideways and falls against Ben’s chest. He gives a surprised umphf, but his arms come up and around her, cradling her.  
  
“It’d just be to Indianapolis.” He brushes a hair away from her face.  
  
“That’s what she said.” Leslie says bitterly.  
  
He’s silent for a moment, “Why are you really upset Leslie?”  
  
She shifts her head a little, perceptibly so, and meets his gaze. They’re faces are closer than she had thought and they lock eyes. His gaze is intense and Leslie can’t read what his eyes are saying. Her heart hammers and it takes her by surprise. This is Ben, she thinks and then she realizes how often she has to tell herself that, that is Ben, just her friend. He breaks the moment by sitting up and she is forced to sit up too, away. He sits on the edge of the couch, elbows on knees and looks at the floor.  
  
Leslie licks her lips, “Why can’t everything  just stay the same?”  
  
And once the question is gone, released she’s not sure what she even means by it.  
  
***  
  
Ben’s not sure if this is a good idea, but he raises a hand to knock on Ann’s door anyway.  
  
She answers it with puffy and red eyes. She doesn’t even bother to say anything, just turns around and leaves the door open behind her. He wavers. This seems like a breech of territory, of the rules.  
  
“Listen, I don’t know you real well,” he starts, “but you’re really important to Leslie so I assume you’re a good person. You know that nothing she said has anything to do with you…”  
  
“And her own fears… yeah, I know,” Ann sighs, “Chris said the same thing.”  
  
 Really? That seems very astute for Chris, “So I hope you know then she’s really sorry.” Ben shoves his hands into his pockets and rocks back and forth.  
  
Ann tilts her head, weighing something and finally says, “I can see why she likes you.”  
  
Ben falters, hopes, and then remembers, “You think she likes me cause she told you that, right?”  
  
“Yeah, duh.”  
  
Ben has to bite back a caustic and bitter laugh. He rubs his face, “She told you that because…because…” he trails off. He couldn’t even explain why Leslie didn’t want to tell Ann. And it wasn’t for him to tell her. He sighs, “Let’s just say for reasons that have nothing to do with me.” His voice tips on the me, cuts it off quickly. He looks at the floor, rocks a bit.  
  
“You’re in love with her.” It’s said as a statement, not a question.  
  
“What? No, of course not.” He tries to shrug it off, tries to sound incredulous, “We’re friends. That would be weird cause we’re just friends.”  
  
Ann doesn’t look sad anymore. She’s grinning sideways and Ben wants to slip away into a hole. She says, “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone.”

Ben’s reclamation project takes a backseat once he’s volunteers to help Leslie with the Harvest Festival.  
  
Volunteer is probably the wrong word for it; enlistment is more accurate. The day after Chris gives permission, she showed up at his hotel room right as he got home from work. It took all his power of negotiation to talk her out of setting up camp in his hotel room ( _with the butcher paper that would be awkward_ ). And power of negotiation really meant giving in.  
  
There are strategy sessions and meetings with local businesses over food at JJ’s. She recruits him, Andy, and April to stake out the corn maze which really turns out into Andy and April running off into the corn and him and Leslie doing all the work, but it leaves them to talk and he makes her laugh with impersonations of their co-workers  _(they really aren’t that funny, but she laughs and it makes him happy and so he crosses it off his list_ ).  
  
When she gets the flu, he takes over plans for a Chamber of Commerce meeting, but she shows up anyway, makes the speech, and then lets him drive her home.  
  
“Why are you so good to me?” she grips his arm when he pulls the blanket up to her cheek, as he’s about to go and let her get some much needed sleep. It catches him off guard and he’s glad her bedroom is dark so he can’t see the terror in his face.  
  
“Because you’re my best friend,” he says is quietly and gently, kissing the top of her head, and he’s sure she doesn’t even hear it because her eyes are closed.  
  
After that he decides he needs to make some traction because he’s not sure how much longer he can take it.  
  
So he makes frisbee golf with Tom a weekly event. He hangs out with Andy and April which is less fun than it is just plain weird ( _they invited him over to be the adult supervision while they tried to melt marbles_ ). He starts running, figures he’ll get to know Pawnee better, and learns very quickly which half belongs to the raccoons. He talks Leslie into a sort-of, but-not-really double date with Chris and Ann. The evening goes alright, except the all vegan restaurant Chris picks out leaves both him and Leslie starving. They go through a drive thru on their way home, park in Ramsett Park after hours, sit on the hood of his Civic, and he ends up telling her about Jenny.  
  
“She has cancer,” he says it without preamble.  
  
Leslie is laying back on the windshield and she sits up on one elbow. “Jenny?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“I thought she might be sick, from the little things you’d said.”  
  
Ben draws his knees up and leans on them. He doesn’t look at Leslie, but let’s it go: the diagnosis when he was ten and she was twelve. Acute lymphblastic lukemia. It meant that her blood didn’t work right and it attacked her lymph nodes, her immune system. It meant long weekends in the hospital and holidays spent at home because traveling was too much of a risk. It meant their dad took out a second and then third job, that their mother became obsessed with keeping the house germ free. It meant that Ben took a back seat but that was okay for him because he loved Jenny, adored her.  
  
“She was always the one with the sense of humor. I think she kept better perspective than we did.”  
  
There was a bone marrow transplant ( _he wasn’t a match)_  and a couple rounds of chemotherapy. And by the time she was eighteen, and Ben was sixteen, she was declared to be in remission.  
  
“There was a summer. A single, perfect summer where we felt normal again. We took a vacation to a lake and my mom seemed to relax, laugh a bit. And my dad,” he draws in a breath, “well, my dad was still my dad.”  
  
Leslie touches his arm and he flinches, had almost forgotten she was there. She pulls her hand away quickly, but he catches it and threads his fingers through hers.  
  
“At the end of the summer my dad told us he was moving out. He had fallen in love with this woman a neighbor who used to bring us meals and pick up our mail,” he says. His jaw is set because he can still remember the way his parents sat them both down on the couch, how his mother’s knuckles were white against her knees, and how Jenny was the first one to react speaking for both of them, “She jumped up and started yelling, but she kept coughing and then she threw up and there was blood in it and so we all took her to the hospital. She admitted there had been blood in her urine all summer but she just wanted one perfect summer for the rest of us. She just wanted us to have normal lives so she never said anything. And the entire time he was fucking a woman down the block.  
  
“She had breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and lymphnoma. They took everything out, sliced her up until she didn’t feel like a woman anymore. More chemo so her hair fell out and her skin blistered. My dad moved out and in with this woman. They had a baby. My mom just became more of everything she already was, just paralyzed with fear until she wouldn’t come out of her room. She stopped going to the hospital so I went. Just me and Jenny.  
  
“And then Jenny dared me to run for mayor. It started out as a joke. I was always into politics and I loved everything about Partridge. It made sense. There were elections and council meetings and referendums. I loved the steadiness of it. We filled out the paper work together and she mailed it in without me knowing. She was really sick right about then, I don’t even remember what it was that time. An infection or something. She said she needed something to look forward too. I went to the first debate just to amuse her. It was broadcast on local cable.”  
  
“And you kicked ass,” Leslie says quietly. It knocks Ben out of his cadence.  
  
“How do you know?”  
  
“I may have emailed the Partridge County library for copies of the local paper during your campaign.”  
  
“When?”  
  
“When you first got here.”  
  
Ben doesn’t have words, lets the fact sink down into his marrow. Leslie nudges him on with her elbow so he goes back to his story.  
  
“After that it just happened. I some how became convinced that if I won she’d live. It was like a deal I made with God. I didn’t want my mother back or my father. I just wanted Jenny to live.”  
  
“And you won,” Leslie said brightly.  
  
“And I screwed it up. My dad told me not to accept it, that I should care enough about Partridge to know I couldn’t do it. And that just me pissed me off so I took it. I played Whoop There It Is because it was Jenny’s favorite song; neither of my parents came.”  
  
“You tried,” she says, defensively.  
  
“Well, the result was the same and I left for college because I couldn’t stand to be there. I had to go.” He looks away.  
  
Leslie is still for a moment and Ben can almost hear the gears turning in her mind and then resting on the truth, “You think you’re like them, like your parents. You think you abandoned Jenny, cause you couldn’t deal.”  
  
“It’s what happened.”  
  
“It’s not what happened,” Leslie sounds mad, outraged like she had that first day they had met. She sits up, looking down at Ben, eyes blazing, “You were an eighteen year-old kid. Going to college was what you were supposed to do. You didn’t go that far - you went to Madison, what three hours away? And I bet you were home for every holiday, every summer, right?”  
  
He shrugs, “Leslie, it’s water under the bridge.”  
  
“But you’re still beating yourself up for it. You still think you’re like your dad or your mom. That you’re not responsible. That you can’t handle the tough stuff.”  
  
And then she did something that caught Ben completely off guard. She leaned over and placed a hand on each arm and ran them up his shoulders until her palms rested on his neck. It was awkward, but Leslie lowered her face to catch his gaze, held it steady, and said, “You’re a good man, Ben Wyatt. Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise. A good man.”  
  
Ben bit his bottom lip and tried to look away, but she wouldn’t let him. She kept her palms on his neck, steady. He looked into her eyes, bright blue and intent, and he believed her. His nod was a slight, imperceptible one, but she saw it, acknowledged it. She leaned forward and half fell at his side until she lay next to him, curled up around him in a weird kind of embrace. And Ben shifted until he had an arm under her neck and around her shoulders. Her palm rested just below his heart and he was glad it wasn’t a few inches higher because then she’d hear it pounding.  
  
***  
  
“Leslie, what are you doing to poor Ben?” Ann stands in the doorway to Leslie’s office, hand on hip.  
  
Leslie freezes with her hands in the air like a criminal caught in the act.  
  
“I’m not working, I swear.”  
  
Ann rolls her eyes, “Everyone knows you sneak in here to work,” Ann takes her usual place in the chair next to Leslie’s desk. The office is deserted, the lights off, and it is just the two of them.  
  
Ann stares her down and Leslie gulps, unsure of what is going on, “What are you doing to Ben?” Ann repeats.  
  
Leslie frowns.  
  
“I just stopped by their office. The boy can barely keep his eyes open. Said you two fell asleep in Ramsett park last night, on top of his car?” Ann tips her eyebrows up and stares Leslie down.  
  
“We didn’t mean too. It just happened.”  
  
“It can’t happen.” Ann said incredulously.  
  
“Why not?”  
  
Ann leans forward, looks at her like she’s waiting for it to click for Leslie, and finally says, “You do realize that he is a man, right? A grown, red blooded man.”  
  
“Uh, duh.”  
  
“Then you realize being best friends with Ben isn’t like being best friends with me. There are lines you can’t cross. Falling asleep in his arms is one of those lines.”  
  
“He told you I fell asleep in his arms?”  
  
Ann’s eyes widened, “I was right! Of course he didn’t tell me that. He hasn’t said anything. But I know you Leslie Knope and when it comes to men you can be dense. And I’m telling you if you care about him at all you’ve got to be careful.”  
  
“No,” Leslie held up a hand, “Ben’s different. He’s Ben. We’re just friends. He doesn’t think of me like that. It would be weird if he did.”  
  
Ann looked down and away and for a moment Leslie thought she was on the verge of saying something, but she just shakes her head and stands, “I’m telling you, you’re going to lose him if you’re not careful. Ben might be Ben, but he’s still a man.”  
  
And then she is gone and Leslie can’t concentrate on work anymore.  
  
She leaves City Hall and drives until she ends up at a park, one of the small ones with just a few benches and a swing set. She starts for the benches, but deviates to the swings. She sinks down and grips the chains. It isn’t in her to swing right now, to pump her feet and fly through the air like she did as a kid. So she settles for dragging one heeled toe through the dirt, twisting in her seat, and watching the dust swirl up around her. The sun beats down on her back, her neck, on her. It is insistent, without yielding, almost to say  _You can’t pretend anymore._  
  
Ben couldn’t have…feelings for her, could he?  
  
She twists some more.  
  
It felt almost wrong that he might, not because she is disgusted by the thought. There were more moments than Leslie wanted to admit that she had been physically aware of Ben, mesmerized really - by his hands, the way his hair fell across his forehead, the liquid warmth of his eyes, the way her hips slot between his, the room between his arms and chest that seemed to fit her so perfectly - Leslie knew all of this, tripped over it in her alone moments. Ann was wrong when she said Leslie as unaware of Ben as a man. She very much knew he was a man, appreciated it, cherished it.  
  
But that didn’t mean it felt normal that he might have feelings for her.  
  
It seemed to her a sacrilege to what they had: the strength of their friendship to be undermined by something as fleeting as sex or desire.  
  
Because that’s all it could be, right?  
  
What Leslie wishes she’d been able to say to Ann, to explain really, was that Leslie didn’t do happily-ever-after the way most women did. She yearned for companionship and friendship, but that never came from men, at least not men she dated. The men she dated, the relationships she had, were always truncated by something. Some men had said Leslie held back, that they weren’t enough of a priority, that she was too independent. It wasn’t that Leslie was without passion, but that passion was always reserved for her friends and for her work. Dave had come as close as anyone to making Leslie think it might be possible: to find a best friend, lover, champion, and partner all in one, but even then life had gotten in the way. Dave wanted her to follow, to give up her dreams to be with him. He wanted her to say You are most important and she just couldn’t say that.  
  
She didn’t think it was unreasonable for him to want that, she just knew it wasn’t in her.  
  
It’s why she would never be a stay home mom or the trophy wife. It’s why her house would always be cluttered and her fridge full of take out and her go to outfit a blazer. She was a working woman. Her life was her job and her friends. She had seen what happens to a marriage when the woman is that way: her father just hadn’t been able to handle it. And while Leslie was softer than her mother, gentler and more effusive, in her core she was still Marlene Griggs-Knope’s daughter.  
  
And that is the sacrifice, isn’t it?  
  
The bullet the modern woman has to bite - that you don’t get to be everything, to have all that you want. The career can’t be managed alongside a husband, 2.5 children, a house, and a gold retriever. You can’t save the world ( _or in her case, Pawnee_ ) and make a family. You have to choose. Powerful women before her had too and Leslie had to too.  
  
And her choice was clear. It had been clear to her for a very long time.  
  
But then there was Ben.  
  
Ben, who was closer to her than anyone, except for maybe Ann, who made her laugh, who delighted in her, who supported and challenged her. He could be the exception to her rule.  
  
But what if he wasn’t? What if they start something and down the road he wants her to move or to work less or have a bunch of babies? And when she couldn’t ( _she knows how the fight goes, heard it growing up: she says can’t and he says won’t and they stop communicating from there_ )  then she would lose him. And she couldn’t lose him. She could not imagine her life without him. It was incomprehensible. It was like trying to imagine Pawnee without the raccoons, Ron without his mustache, Tom without Jean-Ralphio. The brain just didn’t compute.  
  
And that is why it felt so wrong for Ben to have feelings for her, because the risk was too high, the chances too good that it would ruin everything.  
  
***  
  
Of course considerations like these do not dissipate in an afternoon at the park. They stay with you, haunt you even, and what Ann had said to Leslie constituted such an event. For Leslie, the view from her vantage point had changed. Teutonic plates had shifted, the earth had moved, and no one but her had noticed. She felt different around Ben, nervous and more self-aware. For his part, she could detect no perceptible shift. He seemed unaltered by these turn of events of which he wasn’t even aware. And for that reason, Leslie found herself extremely jealous and even a bit spiteful toward him.  
  
So when he shows up on her porch early on a Monday morning, she is annoyed. He is at the end of a run and this is why she is annoyed. In her new state of self-awareness, Leslie is all too aware of the sweat on his neck, arms, and legs, of the white t-shirt that sticks to his frame and makes her throat close up a little bit. It throws her when he knocks on her front door and walks right in. He carries a workout bag over his shoulder. She is still in her pajamas, without a robe or bra under her tank top, but Ben didn’t seem to notice. He hugs her and tells her she has ten minutes to get ready.  
  
“You smell,” she backs out of his reach and he lightly lets his arms drop away like they were never there.  
  
“You’re wasting time.”  
  
“What are we doing?”  
  
Ben tips his eyebrows up, “You’ll see. Try to go with the flow today, okay?” He presses a swift kiss to her forehead, ruffles her hair, and heads toward the stairs.  
  
“Where are you going?” She called.  
  
“To take a shower. I smell.”  
  
Leslie humphed and went up to her room to find some clothes.  
  
***  
  
Ben is grateful for the few minutes alone in the shower to regroup. The smell of her cooking waffles, the awareness of her nipples hard against her tank top, and the annoyance in her voice almost made him come undone. He didn’t know why she was annoyed, but it doesn’t matter. By the end of the day, she’ll be delighted.  
  
He hands her the first clue outside on her porch.  
  
“Is it a scavenger hunt?”  
  
Ben nods. She eyes him, as if only half believing him. Her curls bounce against her shoulders and Ben wants to reach out and twist one against his fingers.  
  
“Don’t you have to work?”  
  
He shrugs, “I took the day off. I thought this might be fun if somebody surprised you for once.”  
  
The scavenger hunt had been Jenny’s idea and the surprise at the end his. Making it work had been hard, but keeping it a secret from Leslie, who saw almost every memo, every budget alignment that came across his desk, was the harder part. Ann had helped him steal the necessary items out of Leslie’s house, but it’d cost him. She’d cornered him on his feelings for Leslie and he promised her this had nothing to do with that. He figured a little lie told in the name of love wouldn’t hurt.  
  
The first clue takes them to the statue of Mayor Percy and as soon as Leslie finds the hard hat perched a top his head her face splits into a delightful grin and whatever offense that had annoyed her earlier is forgiven. On the way to the next clue, a gavel hidden at the Thornbill Mansion, she tries to guess what they mean, “Are we going to build a castle? If it’s a castle can it have a moat?”  
  
And when she found the gavel, “Is Ruth Bader Ginsberg in town? Are we going to build her a castle?”  
  
The third clue, a fake marijuana plant hidden in the penguin exhibit at the Pawnee zoo throws her completely, “Ben, I’m not smoking pot with Ruth Bader Ginsberg.”  
  
They stop at JJ’s for lunch and somewhere in the conversation Ben tells her he’s staying in Pawnee.  
  
Her eyes go bright and wide, “Really?”  
  
“Yeah, my assignment was supposed to be done this week, but since Chris has already fully transitioned into city manager it’ll be a few more weeks until I wrap things up. City Hall is starting to open back up.”  
  
“What about Parks?”  
  
He laughs, “Probably two more weeks and you’ll be back saving the world.”  
  
She claps her hands and then her mouth forms a perfect little O, “Where are you going to live?”  
  
He had some ideas. Andy offered to let him live with him and the strange land lady at the Pawnee Suites Motel tried to tempt him with romantic comedies shown nightly in the lobby, but Ben was thinking an apartment, something with a guest room for Jenny to come and visit.  
  
“We’re going apartment hunting this weekend,” Leslie pulled out her padfolio, “You’re going to want to be close to City Hall in case there is an emergency - you are going to be working at City Hall, right?”  
  
“I have some options,” he sits back, happy to just watch Leslie.    
  
“This is going to be so great,” Leslie exclaims with a sigh, “Nothing has to change.”  
  
Something in Ben twinges a little, but he refuses to let himself dwell on it. This day is about Leslie and making her happy.  
  
***  
  
It is approaching dusk by the time they find the tenth and last clue. He’s sure Leslie will figure it out and he is right. When she rolls out the blue prints, hidden in the original classroom where she had first met Ann, first had the idea to turn Lot 48 into a park, Leslie is speechless. She stands there dumbfounded and silent for a full sixty seconds.  
  
“58…59…60,” Ben counts and grins, “Ann bet Tom it’d be a full minute. Andy thought you’d figure it out when you found his crutches.”  
  
“My park…”  
  
Ben rocks on his heels, “Before the shut down you needed $38,000 to finish the lot. I found you $12,000. If the Harvest Festival goes well, Chris has agreed that the Parks department gets first dibs on the profits to make up the difference.”  
  
“You got me my park…”  
  
Ben shakes his head, “No, you got you your park. The $12,000 came out of revenue savings ideas you had. And the Harvest Festival…that’s all you.”  
  
The look she gives him, one of sheer joy and beaming adoration, makes Ben feel like he is going to burst. This leaves only one thing left on his list: to tell Leslie how he felt, but right now even that seems inconsequential. He’s happy right now having just made her happy. In this moment, that is enough for him.  
  
“Thank you, Ben,” she says it softly and hugs him, weaves her arms around him and tucks herself into the concave of his chest, her head on his heart, and they stand there for a very long time, heads buried in each other’s necks. They stand there and share the moment.  
  
***  
  
Of course the day isn’t over. Ben knows Leslie and he knows that most of her joy comes in sharing it with others so he takes her to Ann’s house where everyone, Ann, Chris, Andy, April, Ron, Jerry, Tom, and Donna, are all there. There is food and Andy sings a song Ben thinks is supposed to be about April even though it’s about a girl called November. When she tells them about the park, Ron offers to build the benches if he can carve his favorite Libertarian quotes into them and Tom suggests they replace the community garden with a community cat walk. Everyone wants to hear about the scavenger hunt and Leslie delights in retelling them.  
  
“And the hard hat is from when Ann and I tried to fill in the pit.”  
  
“And you almost killed me!” Andy said as if remembering fondly.  
  
“The gavel I used to call my first pit committee meeting. And the marijuana plant is when Tom thought someone was growing pot in the garden and we did that stake out…”  
  
Ann uses the opportunity to pull Ben away from everyone else and into her kitchen, “Do you know what this feels like?” she hisses.  
  
“It feels like you were a defensive lineman in another life, ow,” Ben rubs the arm she pulled him by.  
  
“It’s the speed training Chris has me on,” she says and then jabs a finger into Ben’s chest, “This feels like an engagement party.”  
  
“What? Why?”  
  
Ann rolls her eyes, “All our friends gathered to wait for you and Leslie after the two of you spend the day together on this elaborate game you’ve set-up just to tell her you’ve made her biggest dream come true. Come on, Ben what else does it feel like?”  
  
“No one else thinks that,” Ben crosses his arms.    
  
“Jerry brought a gift!”  
  
Ben doesn’t say anything and Ann stares him down. He can get what Leslie means about Ann’s nurse persona. It is scary.  
  
“I just want to make her happy,” He looks at the floor.  
  
Ann softens and touches his elbow, “And I don’t want you to get your heart broken. She’s not there yet.”  
  
Ben nods, “I know that. Today wasn’t about any of that. It was just about doing for Leslie what she does for other people.”  
  
And smiles sadly, but doesn’t say anything else.  
  
She and Ben rejoin the party and find Leslie and Chris in a deep conversation. Leslie cuts it off as they approach and goes to Ann, “Can you believe it, our park is finally going to happen?”  
  
***  
  
Later that night, Ann is cleaning up the plates of cake and something Chris calls sprout cookies when Chris comes up behind her and thread his arms around her. She leans back into him.  
  
“Ben’s in love with Leslie,” she says.  
  
Chris rests his head on her shoulder, “I know. I think it’s beautiful.”  
  
Ann sighs, “She’s not…at least she’s not ready to admit it.”  
  
Chris is silent for a long time, “Yeah, I know.”  
  
He takes the plates from Ann and sets them down on the table and turns her in his arms, “Ann Perkins,” he says, “I am in love with you.” He reaches into his pocket, “And you’ve made my life beautiful just by being in it…”  
  
And then there is a little black box and a brilliant shine and Leslie and Ben are forgotten completely.  
  
***  
  
Ben considers himself a patient man, but even he is losing it.  
  
Two weeks after the scavenger hunt, Leslie and the rest of the Parks department start work again. Summer is wrapping up. The days are getting shorter and at night when he sits on Leslie’s porch playing 20 Questions ( _20 most important political decisions in American history, 20 reasons why Ben is a nerd, 20 reasons Ann has turned into Bridezilla_ ) the air is crisper.  
  
He has signed a lease and partially moved into the apartment. Leslie was insistent in helping him vet buildings and landlords, but had no opinion on what color paint to put on the walls or what kind of furniture he should buy. Instead, he somehow ended up taking Andy and April ( _Tom’s advice was too expensive_ ) and ended up with a mattress set, couch, and a few things for the kitchen. Otherwise there was nothing except his clothes and some books for work. Andy asked what Ben was going to put on the walls and while Ben wanted to rehang his butcher paper lists, he decided it was too dangerous. He wanted Leslie, and you know normal people, to be able to come over to his house. So he rolls them up and puts them in the back of his bedroom closet.  
  
He complains to Jenny, who likewise is unsympathetic.  
  
“Do you see her every day?”  
  
“Yeah, we eat lunch together and then there is the work with the EBTF, we’re still finishing some of that up.”  
  
“And don’t you guys have dinner together at least three nights a week?”  
  
“Well, yeah.”  
  
“Is it the sex? Is that what you’re missing?”  
  
Ben rubs his forehead, “No, I’m willing to wait for her. I just want to know that at the end of all this, however long it takes, that I get the girl. I just want to know that it will work out.”  
  
Jenny sighs but it turns into a cough and Ben has to wait for her to catch her breath and across the miles he can hear it: the grasping for air, the reverberating in her chest, and smallest mewl when she finishes, like a drowned cat coming up for air.  
  
“Jenny,” his voice is low and hard, “Jenny tell me what is going on.”  
  
“It’s just a cold,” she hammers out between more coughing, “I’ve been to see Dr. Peterson. It’s no big deal. I promise. Tell me more about the girl, about what she did about the Indian who said the Harvest Fest ground is cursed. Tell me so I can catch my breath.”  
  
***  
  
Leslie has brunch with her mother every other Sunday at JJ’s. It’s a tradition and they always get the back booth, the best one, because Marlene flirts with JJ a little bit and Leslie always orders lunch to go.  
  
This Sunday, her first since being back at work, Leslie is brimming with details to tell her mother: progress on Harvest Fest, on the park, and on the still havoc stricken budget, but Marlene has her own agenda.  
  
“Are you sleeping with Ben Wyatt?” she says. She tips non-fat creamer into her coffee as she says it. Leslie’s love of all things sweet and rich came from her father.  
  
Leslie chokes on her whipped cream, “No.”  
  
“Then how did you get the funding for you park? People are saying he’s a real hard ass.”  
  
“I helped find the money and Ben’s a friend. He believes in the park.”  
  
Marlene tips up an eyebrow, “Are you sure he isn’t trying to get you into bed?”  
  
“No,” Leslie shakes her head, “we’re friends and he’s a great guy. He believes in me and thinks I can make a difference. He’s just trying to help.”  
  
Marlene settles back, “I think you’re being naive.”  
  
“I’m not green at this, Mom,” Leslie isn’t sure where her voice is coming from, but it builds, “I’m good at my job, at government, and I want to do more.”  
  
There, she’d said it for the first time to anyone besides Ben, to the one person who might be her harshest judge, and the world hadn’t imploded.  
  
Marlene looks surprised, but says, “Well, what are your ideas?”  
  
***  
  
On Monday morning, Leslie takes extra care to wear her most professional looking blazer, a tailored black piece layered over a red shirt. She always thought red was her power color. At lunch that day she abnormally quiet and Ben asks about it. She brushes it off as no big deal. She wants to keep this to herself. Once it is finalized then Ben will be the first person she’ll call. Ann will be second, and her mother third. Her mother, who listened on Sunday with reserve, at the end said, “You know you need more experience.”  
  
“I’m working on getting it,” Leslie replied.  
  
And that is what today is. She’d made the appointment with Chris the night of her party, the night Ann and he got engaged. She half thought he might have forgotten and wavered on whether to send him a reminder, but she didn’t want to betray her nerves. She wanted to remain nonchalant. Luckily, his secretary had sent her a reminder email, Monday 4:30 p.m.  
  
So at the end of the day, when most people aren’t in the building and Leslie knew Ben would be at a meeting with Sweetums negotiating the final changes to their contract with the school district, she walks into Chris Trager’s office to ask for a job.  
  
He starts to interrupt her, but she insists on finishing her speech. She presses her hands to her thighs to hide their shaking. She addresses her weaknesses and turns them into positives: her lack of experience on big projects (she’s hasn’t formed bad habits and is willing to try anything), her seeming love for spending money (her work on the EBTF has taught her about generating revenue), and finishes with all the numbers Ben put together for Harvest Fest, all the projections.  
  
“And I was going to wait until Paul came back to pitch the idea of an assistant city manager, but I think I can make a difference in Pawnee now. I think that the Harvest Festival and the park are just the projects to start off with. I have ideas about other ways to generate revenue: bring back the state little league tournament, rebuild the old observatory, show movies in the park, hold a community wide auction. I can keep going.” She finishes and allows herself to breath deep. Go big or go home.  
  
Chris is very still.  
  
“Leslie you know you’re one of our best people,” he says, “and if I had known you were interested I would have considered you. Paul suggested I find an assistant city manager. Said it was one of his latest ideas right before his heart attack.”  
  
“It was my idea,” she says, but Chris doesn’t seem to hear her.  
  
“And so I filled the position. This afternoon actually.”  
  
Later, Leslie will try to salvage the situation by thinking about how professional she stayed, how she thanked Chris for listening, looked him in the eye and shook his hand, and made it all the way to her car before she let herself cry.  
  
***  
  
Ben has to talk himself out of calling Leslie when it gets to be nine o’clock and she still hasn’t called. She told him, when he stopped by to ask her a last minute question about Sweetum’s Nick Newport, that she’d call him when she got home from work. That she would have news. He asked what kind if news and she played coy, but he could tell it was something big so on the way home he bought a bottle of wine and put it in the fridge to chill.  
  
But it is nine and she still hasn’t called.  
  
He’s worried something might have happened to her.  
  
He’s worries she might be on a date. She looked extra nice today. She was abnormally silent.  
  
But then his phone rings and it is her name flashing across the screen and Ben answers it with a smile in his voice.  
  
“Ben,” it is sad, pathetic even.  
  
He stands up, “Leslie, what’s wrong?” he can hear the noise in the background, a Madonna song, “Where are you?”  
  
“Remember that night I picked you up from the airport and took care of you when you were drunk?” her words are slow, like it is taking great effort to get them out, “‘Member that?”  
  
“Of course. Leslie, tell me where you are.” Ben is already pulling on his shoes.  
  
“I’m at the Bulge and I need you to return a favor.”  
  
***  
  
Ben does what Leslie asks and takes a cab rather than driving. He shoves his hands in his jean pockets and surveys the room. There she is, slumped over the bar with half a dozen pink fruity concoctions at her elbow. All of them are empty.  
  
“Hey,” He reaches a hand around her back and speaks into her ear. She’d been half-asleep and sits up fast.  
  
“Ben!”  
  
She throws her arms around him. She looks happy, but when she pulls back Ben sees her red rimmed eyes. He cups her cheek with one hand and focuses in on her, “What happened?”  
  
“I’m celebrating,” she shifts away.  
  
“Celebrating what?”  
  
“The modern woman,” she says bitterly, “and all her sacrifices.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Just drink with me.”  
  
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”  
  
“Fine, Jean-Ralphio!”  
  
From no where, Jean-Ralphio appears at her elbow, “Yes, my love.”  
  
“Buy me a shot.”  
  
But before Jean-Ralphio can motion a bartender, Ben steps between them, “I’ve got this,” he says to Jean-Ralphio, who dances away.  
  
Leslie isn’t paying attention. She’s fist pounding the bar shouting, “More shots. More shots. More shots.”  
  
Ben tries to get her attention, to talk her into a cab, and home, but she is insistent. He asks her if she has called Ann to which Leslie throws up an arm and shouts, “Oh she can go marry a gay penguin for all I care.”  
  
So in the end, Ben does two, maybe three shots to appease her. He can’t really be sure, but the number doesn’t matter. It’s more the pleasant, swimming feeling he has as he half supports Leslie outside and into the cab. She curls up against him, definitely more drunk than he is, and buries her face in his chest. Ben threads his fingers thru her hair and lets his own head loll from side to side.  
  
***  
  
He takes her to his apartment, which she hasn’t been too since he moved in. She sets exploring while he looks for aspirin in the bathroom. When he comes out into the kitchen, she is hunched over the counter, the wine bottle open and at her elbow. Both arms brace her and her face is tucked down into her chest.  
  
“Hey,” he eases up to her, picks her arms up, and winds them around his neck, “Hey, you okay?”  
  
She shakes her head an almost imperceptible no. Ben leans back into the counter and pulls her as close to him as he can. Their bodies meet, knees, thighs, stomachs, chests. The alcohol dulls his mind just enough so that he has a hard time not thinking about her breasts pressed up against him. They stand there for a long time until finally Ben says, “Tell me what happened.”  
  
“It doesn’t matter,” she whispers, “It just doesn’t matter any more.”  
  
“Don’t say that. We can fix it. Whatever it is, we can fix it.” He kisses the top of her forehead.  
  
She shakes her head no against his chest and a dry sob escapes.  
  
“We can,” he says.  
  
“Why are you so good to me?”  
  
Ben almost doesn’t hear it, but he does he freezes, goes still with her in his arms. And it’s Leslie who moves this time, who lifts her hands and with the lightest, almost feather light touch, touches his hair, his forehead, his jaw. Her fingers trace his eyebrows, the shape of his nose, and the upturn of his mouth as if she is discovering him for the first time, seeing him for the first time. He stands perfectly still, looking into her red rimmed eyes trying to see what is going on. Finally she matches his gaze and her blue eyes are so wide, so intent, that it steals his breath away.  
  
And in that moment of not breathing, where his mind empties out, and the half-formed thoughts shoot off into a million different directions, it is like seeing her again for the first time and it is like seeing her again for every time. It is both something new and familiar, like a song and a dance they’ve both been following for a long time and this is it’s natural conclusion, the end they’d been leading up to since the start. Leslie kisses him.


	5. Chapter 5

Leslie kisses him.  
  
Leslie is kissing him.  
  
Leslie. Kissing. Him.

It takes a moment for the thought to reach his brain, for it to clear customs, and to settle in. So he just stands there and Leslie is the one who is pushing in, arching her back, pressing. It is Leslie who winds her arms around his neck and anchors them together.  
  
And finally there is the moment when it sinks in and Ben can finally process what is going on. It is when she says his name, “Ben.”  
It’s not even a whisper, more like a sigh. It’s his name on her lips, something that has happened a thousand times before, that finally snaps Ben into reality.  
  
This is actually happening.  
  
He threads his fingers through her hair and with the other hand strokes her cheek. A tear sticks to the pad of his finger and he knows that this shouldn’t go anywhere tonight. He knows she is coming down from the achohal and something is not right so it can’t go any farther than this kiss, but he’s going to take the kiss as far as he can go. He’s going to kiss her, kiss her like he’s been wanting to for months, because who knows what happens when they open their eyes.  
  
It’s lazy at first, exploratory, and without rush. They’re not touching except at their mouths and hands threaded around one another’s neck. There is hesitancy too, unsure of the tension slowly lapping beneath the sweetness. Ben brushes his mouth over hers, pulls away only a millimeter just to see if she will follow and she does. He tilts his head and catches her bottom lip between his teeth, tugging slightly. She opens her lips and his tongue juts in just for the briefest second.    
  
One of them, he’s not sure who, moans a little in the back of their throat and that is enough to send him tipping over the edge. His hands pull on her hips, spin her, and lift her up onto the counter. She wraps her legs around him, scoots forward to the edge, and arches her back into him. Their lips are moving fast now, over each other, finding deeper angles to push together. Leslie fists her hands in his hair and pulls. It hurts a little, but Ben grips her hips and thrusts into her and she whimpers a little and he smirks against her lips.  
  
Her hands are moving over his back and they itch his t-shirt up and she scrapes her fingernails along the length of his spine. He chokes a little and runs his thumb along the band of her pants. She is impatient for him to get there, takes his hand in hers and scoots it underneath her blouse onto the plane of her stomach. He pulls away, to annoy her, and she is back with her hands on his guiding them up her rib cage and onto her breasts. When he rubs a thumb across her nipple she sighs into him and Ben knows that he’s got her pliant, that she is relaxed enough to receive.  
  
In one quick motion he’s got whatever kind of loose blouse she’s wearing up over her head and it goes over his shoulder into the kitchen sink. She ducks her head away from him, but Ben catches her chin between his thumb and pointer finger, brings it up, and looks into her eyes. It’s the first time since she kissed him and what he sees breaks his heart a little bit. Her eyes aren’t cloudy from alcohol, but still red rimmed and brim with trepidation. He isn’t sure what is going on exactly, knows there is more to this than just the two of them, but he wants to, even for just a moment, tell her without words how beautiful she is, how cherished, and how important.  
  
So he holds her gaze, won’t let her look away now that she is stripped down, and hopes she gets what he is trying to say.  
  
He thinks she does because she reaches up behind her and unhooks her bra, sends it in the same direction as her shirt and Ben is pulling off his t-shirt and they crush together. Her legs wrap around him so tight that the muscles in her thighs twitch. He splays his hands on her back, counts the vertebrae between his fingers, and hollows out a place for his face in her neck. She does the same and they stand there without movement for a few seconds, just holding and breathing.  
  
He kisses her neck, trailing his lips across her jaw, and then finds her lips again. She is pushing him down and arching her back so that her head lays against the upper cabinets, eyes shut and hair brushing her shoulders. Ben stops and toys with the curls, twisting them between his fingers. He is fascinated by the way they spring back into place. She makes a noise of impatience and pulls his mouth to her breast. Ben takes one in his mouth, licking and sucking, and when it does it Leslie lets out a moan. Not like the tiny ones she was making before, but something of deep almost feral pleasure. He stays at it just to hear that sound from her again. He wants to hear all her sounds, to find out where they come from, and memorize them.  
  
Her hands skip down his sides and she has his pants unbuckled before he realizes what is happening. When her nails scrape under the elastic band of his underwear, Ben stops. She stops and furrows her brow.  
  
“Leslie,” Yes, he is doing this, “we can’t.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
He drops his head to her shoulder and leans on her a bit. Her fingers play with the hair at the nape of his neck. Finally, he straightens up and says, “Because you’re sad and I don’t want it to be sad,” a pause and a swallow, “I’ve imagined this so many times and I…” he can’t finish.  
  
Leslie makes a tiny almost imperceptible nod, looks down, and then her eyes flicker back up at him. Bright, bright blue staring into him.  
  
“You don’t make me sad. You’ve never made me anything but right and whole.”  
  
He waits.  
  
“Ben, please.”  
  
He knows it’s foolish. He knows it could ruin everything. But he doesn’t care. It scares him how little he cares right now. Through this whole thing he’s been so intentional that now when he should be more careful than ever, he wants to take a running leap and jump off the cliff.  
  
She is watching him, waiting. Ben takes his time, doesn’t meet her eye, and rubs the crook of her elbow with his thumb. He begins to weigh the pros and cons, but something, maybe the smoothness of her skin or his own foolishness, makes him stop. A beat and a pause and he looks up at her and smiles. It tugs a smile out of her and she leans in toward him and cups his face in her hands. Ben encircles her wrists with his fingers and pulls her arms around his neck. The gesture is a silent sentence. He knows she won’t like it, but he wants her to just follow, to give up the lead, and be attended too.  
  
He carries her to his bedroom, her legs still wrapped around his waist, and they fall together side by side onto his bed. The light in the room is blue and the blinds on the single window are open. Ben wonders if he should close them, but Leslie’s fingers are moving across his chest.  
  
“That tickles,” he says against her lips.  
  
“Good,” she says and her hands fly down to his side to the spot she knows is ticklish. He jerks and she throws her head back and laughs. He wraps his arms around her and pulls himself on top of her.  
  
“This is better,” he says and she nods.  
  
They are kissing again, starting again with the sweetness and letting the slow burn build. He shifts and lets her get used to his weight. Her hands explore down and slip into his pants. He chokes a little as she strokes him. She laughs against his neck.  
  
Two can play that game.  
  
He gets her pants and underwear off and Leslie looks satisfied, like they are finally going to get to the part she’s been waiting for, but Ben has other plans. He sits back between her legs and rises one of her knees up. She watches him anxiously and he presses a quick kiss to reassure her. He kisses her hip bone, the left one once and the right one twice and when he moves to go lower she says, “Ben?”  
  
He straightens up over her and touches her curls,”I want to.”  
  
She squirms and he’s about to stop, but she stills and smiles, “If you want to…”  
  
He does and when he goes down on her there are new mummers and moans. Her hand snakes down and grasps at his shoulder. He gives her his hand and she threads her fingers through his. He can tell when she is close, her hips quicken against him and he squeezes her hand to tell her that he knows. When it happens she lets out a, “Don’t stop,” and then she is clutching and bucking and Ben holds onto her, rides it out with her, and then there is a sigh and stillness.  
  
“Ben,” she says on the end of an exhale.  
  
“I’m here,” he climbs over her, resting on his elbows. He kisses her breast bone.  
  
“You still have your pants on,” she notes lazily.  
  
“I know.”  
  
“Take them off.”  
  
“Yes’m.”  
  
She watches and Ben feels self-conscious, but when he lays back down her hands find him - first his hips and then she touches him with a finger, two fingers, and then her whole hand.  
  
“Jesus Leslie,” he says into her shoulder and she chuckles. She lifts herself up and starts to move downward, but he catches her around the waist, “I want you. Now.”  
  
“Not fair.”  
  
“I know,” Ben says, “but I don’t care.”  
  
She rolls onto her back and he follows her. Hovering over her he kisses her forehead, the lightest touch.  Her hands guide him into her and it isn’t perfect. She has to shift, open up her legs more, and once he is in she stops him with a hand on his bicep, “Just give me a second,” she says.  
  
She arches and stretches and Ben can feel himself sink deeper in and then it is right. She runs her hands down his arms and he takes that as permission. The first thrusts are short and shallow, but they build and after a few tries she moves with him, under him, and him in her. She wraps her legs around him and anchors her hands on his back, digging in.    
  
It is building and Leslie’s eyes are closed and he watches her face.  
  
Faster and deeper. He is so close.  
  
“Leslie,” he can barely get it out, “look at me. Look at me this time.”  
  
It might be the first time. It could be the last time. Either way he wanted to see the change in her eyes, see what he does to her.  
  
Faster and faster and deeper.  
  
She looks at him, blue into brown, and her hands are every where touching him and cradling him and making him come undone.  
  
Faster and faster and faster.  
  
“Ben!”  
  
Her cry is his release. He comes undone and then there is nothing.  
  
***  
  
“Ben,” Leslie mummers against his shoulder. They had fallen asleep still coupled,  The clock says it is one in the morning.  
  
“Hmmm.”  
  
She doesn’t say anything, but her hands play up his side and he braces for the tickle. Instead she goes back down to where they were joined. She touches him at the base, right where he entered her.  
  
“Is there something you want?” he still hasn’t opened his eyes.  
  
She rolls and he follows. She straddles him, rides him, this time. He watches her in the moonlight that shines through the open bedroom window. The silver glints off her hair. She comes with him this time and when she does she throws back her head and Ben has the wild thought that she must be a creature from another world.  
  
***  
  
Ben has never been a cuddler. Women always think he will be; he is boyish and sweet and kind of a dork. He likes to hold a woman, for her to bury herself in his arms, but he can’t fall asleep that way and it is always awkward trying to extricate himself after sex.  
  
Leslie does lay in his arms for a while, catches her breath and listens to his heart hammer. But then she moves away, wrapping the sheet around her, and says sheepishly, “I can’t sleep tangled up together.”  
  
“That’s fine,” he says cause it is.  
  
She rolls onto her stomach and hugs a pillow. Looks at him, “hi.”  
  
“Hi,” he smiles. She ducks her head and he says, “You wanna talk about it?”    
  
Her eyes are wide and mischievous, “That was called sex.”  
  
“Thank you. I was confused,” Ben laughs, “Seriously, though do you want to talk?”  
  
She scrunches up her nose, “Not right now. Is that okay?”  
  
“Yes,” Ben kisses her lightly, “Goodnight Leslie Knope.”  
  
“Good night Ben Wyatt.”  
  
There is no light to turn off and Ben lies there for a while until he hears her breathing slow. He knows there is a mountain of complications in front of them starting with how they actually feel about each other, but tonight Ben pushes those aside. He is content just hearing Leslie fall asleep beside him, to feel the weight of her on his mattress, to have his blanket stolen because it appears she’s kind of a cover hog. The happiness of it all lulls him to sleep and right when he is on the verge of slumber he hears her voice, quiet and tentative.  
  
“Ben?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Nothing. I just wanted to make sure you were really there.”  
  
***  
  
Ben doesn’t know what happened.  
  
He woke up with her watching him out of one eye. With gravity she tells him his house has no breakfast food. There is a brief tickle fight, some lazy kisses, and a “I’m happy” in there somewhere. He tells her he is happy too. Gloriously happy. He tells her what he had planned to tell her last night, before the drunken phone call: that Chris offered him the assistant city manager job and he’s taken it. It’s what will allow him to stay in Pawnee. She seems shocked - she says she didn’t know the job even existed, but she says she is happy for him.  
  
He replays the last moments slowly in his head because he can’t find what went wrong. Her stomach growls and he tells her to take a shower and he’ll go to the store, get the makings for waffles. She agrees and after he puts on clothes drops his head down to give her a quick kiss. When he stands he stops and stares at her, messed and tangled in his sheets.  
  
“What?” she asks.  
  
“Nothing,” he says, “I just like the image of you in my bed and my apartment. Like you belong here.”  
  
She doesn’t respond really, mutters something about being hungry.  
  
So he goes. He gets four different kinds of syrup because he’s not sure which she’ll want. Gets strawberries and blueberries and extra whipped cream. He brings it all back, opens the door, and says, “I’m back,” and as he steps over the threshold a thrill runs through him. He has someone to come home too.  
  
Except she’s gone.


	6. Chapter 6

The worst thing about Ann marrying Chris is that it means Leslie can't just drive straight from Ben's apartment to Ann's house. Chris lives there. He dared be there when Leslie needs a couch to cry on. So she curses out Chris in her car, pulls over on the side of the road because her eyes are blurred from the tears, and cries herself out.

  
 She doesn’t even really know what she’s crying about except the desperate thoughts that this wasn’t the way it was supposed to work out, that she had worked so hard and it’d come to nothing, and that she’d hurt Ben. That last thought makes her cry harder, bent up over her steering wheel because he was Ben, her Ben, and almost perfect in his imperfections. She almost turns the car around and goes back to him, but something stopped her because it all still stung. She is embarrassed. Her enthusiasm and ambitions didn’t matter; she wasn’t good enough.    
  
She isn’t sure how much time passes before her eyes hurt too much to cry any longer and she digs a napkin out of her purse, blows her nose, and calls Ann. The conversation is quick:  
  
"Ben. Me." is about all she gets out between the breaths that are threatening to hyperventilate.  
  
Ann doesn't ask questions and makes Leslie count backwards from hundred by sevens and think of warm brownies before she drives back to her house. It does slow her breathing and stop her crying, but it does nothing to fix the way her chest feels like it has collapsed.  
  
Ann meets her on the porch with coffee and worry creasing her face. Leslie takes the coffee, lets them in, and sits silently on the couch with the steaming Styrofoam cup settled on her knees. She is worn thin and staring, at nothing really, and in her purview Ann sinks down onto the couch and waits.  
  
Leslie tries for a calm and steady voice, the voice she rehearses all her big speeches with, "I lied about liking Ben," she says.  
  
Ann lifts a hand, but stops when Leslie keeps talking.  
  
"I lied about liking Ben. I think I'm in love with Ben."  
  
"Alright."  
  
"I think I've always known but it seemed impossible or improbable or something so I kept denying it. And then last night when everything was so terrible and I wanted someone next to me, someone who, when they said they believed in me, I believed them because I just couldn’t do it for myself right then. I knew that person was Ben and so I called him. And he was everything I needed him to be and he took me back to his apartment to let me sleep it off and I kissed him."  
  
She says it with real astonishment as if she is reliving the moments of another Leslie and finding them strange and impossible.  
  
"I kissed him because I thought maybe I’d been wrong and maybe it was him and not the career after all. And then he kissed me back."  
  
She looks at Ann at this point. Ann's eyebrows could not be higher. She is leaning toward Leslie and almost falls off the couch when Leslie stops.  
  
"And?" she says.  
  
"And I stopped being able to think."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Everything just stopped. My brain turned off or not really. I was fully there. It wasn't because I was drunk or desperate. It was like I didn't need to analyze or criticize or do anything but be with him. And so my brain could just be. I could just be and it was enough because it was him."  
  
Leslie looks sideways at her and then comes back to the cup, its black depths, and her monologue.  
  
"And it was wonderful," she says very stoically.  
  
“You make it sound like it.”  
  
Leslie rolls her eyes, lets out a little giggle, and sits back against the couch, tucking her feet beneath her.  
  
"It was amazing. He was amazing. It could have been so awkward and it wasn't perfect, but it was right and he made it that way," She says and the tears come back, "and he made me laugh. No guy has ever made me laugh in bed before."  
  
Ann grasps Leslie's hand and Leslie lets the tears fall silently for a moment so she can get a hold on her voice, catch it from breaking, "And I saw it, finally, how much he cared. He didn't have to say it. He made sure I knew it though. And I fell asleep thinking how this could be the beginning of the rest of my life."  
  
"Then why are you here crying on the couch?" Ann says as she hands Leslie a tissue. Leslie blows her nose and it's loud and kind of gross. It makes her cry harder.  
  
"Because he took my job."  
  
"In the parks department?"  
  
"No, assistant city manager."  
  
Ann looks confused, "I didn't know you applied for it."  
  
"I went in yesterday to talk to Chris about it and he told me he'd given it to someone already but he didn't say who and then Ben told me this morning."  
  
"And he knew you wanted the job?"  
  
Leslie nods her head no.  
  
"So why are you mad at him?"  
  
"I'm not."  
  
"Then what are you doing here?"  
  
Leslie cries harder and Ann looks at her like she has gone insane. She tries to explain, but the words get caught up in the throat and Ann has to say her name twice before Leslie realizes she is incomprehensible.  
  
"Sit up," Ann instructs and Leslie obeys, "Now take a deep breath and tell me what is going on. Calmly. You are a grown woman. You don't get to go into hysterics over a man."  
  
Leslie nods, her chin still wobbling a little, but she breathes and breathes again.  
  
"Remember when you warned me to be careful about Ben?"  
  
"Yes," Ann says.  
  
"I thought about it and I told myself that Ben wasn't an option. He's the type of guy who deserves a woman who will be there for him, who will cook him dinner and give him babies and listen to him about work. He cares so well that he deserves someone who can care like that back."  
  
"And you don't think you can do that?"  
  
Leslie sighs, "I don't think I want to do that."  
  
Ann tilts her head, "Leslie, you're one of the most caring and thoughtful people I know."  
  
"I know, I mean sure that's true, but I'm not..." and she searches for the right word, "the little woman."  
  
A muscle in Ann's face twitched, "And you think that's what Ben wants...Susie homemaker?"  
  
"No, I think he deserves someone who is devoted to him."  
  
"Like he's devoted to you?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"And you can't be that because..."  
  
"I have Pawnee. I have my career and my ambitions. It's not fair for him to be devoted to me and me devoted to everyone else,” Leslie says.  
  
"So you slept with him and then left? That's fair?"  
  
Leslie threw up her hands, "No, that's not what happened."  
  
Ann clears her throat, "Then what happened because from where I am sitting you left the love of your life to come and sit on your couch and cry to me.”  
  
"He had just told me about the job and was going out to get food, to make me breakfast..."  
  
"That asshole..."  
  
"Ann, just listen, okay?"  
  
"Okay."  
  
"And he stopped and he turned around and he said 'I like the image of you in my bed and my apartment. Like you belong here.'" Leslie stops.  
  
"And?"  
  
"And, don't you get it?"  
  
Ann hangs her head, "Not. At. All."  
  
"He wants somebody who is at home, waiting for him. Who is wrapped up in his life. He wants that and I can't be that."  
  
Ann puts two hands on Leslie's knees and Leslie thinks she might be finally understanding. She says, "Leslie there is no way any sane woman would get that from what he said."  
  
"Well, I did."  
  
"But you know that's not true. No one has been more supportive of you and your career than Ben."  
  
"I know," Leslie shakes her head, "But it scared me and I felt like the fact that Ben had gotten the job I wanted, the job I created, that it just ruined everything between us and I had to get out of there. I had to get some air and think and talk to you."  
  
Ann is quiet for a long moment, "What do you mean the job you created?"  
  
"I went to Paul earlier in the summer and pitched the position. I wrote up a job description. I argued for how it would improve city hall. I found the money in the city budget. And then after his heart attack he gave the idea to Chris and passed it off as his own."  
  
"And Chris gave it to Ben." Ann finishes.  
  
Leslie nods. She knows there is no malice from Ben or even Chris, who of course would look to his partner and closest friend to fill the position.  
  
It just felt wrong, like despite all her hard work and optimism and belief that it could work out, that it just didn't matter. It was the harsh truth that sometimes life didn’t work out even when you did everything you were supposed too: the timing is off, someone takes credit for your good idea, your sister gets sick, or the money just doesn’t exist. It happens. It had happened to Ben. And now it had happened to her.  
  
And something about that idea made her want to cry even more.  
  
He’d felt this sort of disappointment and she’d done it to him again.  
  
Even though he’d done everything right it still hadn’t been enough.  
  
It sucks and there is no way around that.  
  
***  
  
Ann, beautiful Ann, lets Leslie sit there silent for a long time. She doesn’t say anything, just moves silently to get them each a water bottle from the fridge, straightens a pile of magazines, and when she did her ring catches Leslie’s eye. The diamond reflects the light and Leslie says, “When you said yes to Chris, did you feel like you were saying no to something else?”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“Like you had to choose between the boy and the career?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“But you might move to Indianapolis…”  
  
“And I can have a career there. Or I can quit or go back to school or have a dozen babies.”  
  
“But what about your life in Pawnee?”  
  
Ann takes Leslie’s hand again and sits with her in the envelope of the couch cushions, “People do this all the time, Leslie. They change jobs, cities even, and they stay friends.”  
  
Leslie laughs. It broke out of her and Ann frowns, “What?”  
  
“Ben said the same thing to me. The exact same thing when I was worried about leaving my job in the Parks department,” she lets out a breath and wipes her nose with the back of her hand, “Guess, I need to learn to listen better.”  
  
Ann sits up and puts on her best nurse voice, “You need to get your ass back over to Ben’s apartment before he has a melt down and tell him everything, beg for forgiveness”  
  
“You think he will?”  
  
Ann softened, “Do you know how crazy he is for you?”  
  
“Ann Perkins, how long have you known?”  
  
“Since he came to tell me how sorry you were after our fight about Chris. It was so, so blatantly obvious. And then he let it slip that you didn’t really like him, that you’d made that up for some reason-,”  
  
“Because I was afraid to tell you about wanting to change jobs. I thought you’d be disappointed.”  
  
“Which was stupid,” Ann leans on an elbow.  
  
“Yeah, I know.”  
  
“But I saw what was going on and I knew you weren’t ready, but now you are. So go get the boy.” She nudges Leslie’s shoulder.  
  
There is a knock at the door and they both freeze. Through the window they can see it’s a dark haired man standing on the porch.  
  
“Oh god, I look terrible,” Leslie starts grabbing tissues, can’t think of where to put them, and starts trying to stuff them down her shirt, “Hide Ann!”  
  
Ann firmly takes Leslie by the wrists, collects the tissues, and says, “I’ll answer the door and you go splash water on your face.”  
  
“Okay,” Leslie breathes.  
  
From the bathroom, she hears the door open, but doesn’t quite hear what Ann says. She pauses in the doorway before she goes out. Takes a deep breath and hopes, maybe even prays, that it will be alright. That he will understand and some day they’ll laugh about this.  
  
But when she goes out into the living room, it’s not Ben. It’s Chris and he’s frowning. Ann looks from him to Leslie and there is a moment where everything stills for Leslie and she knows this is not good.    
  
Then Chris says very carefully, almost gently, “He called and left a message. I am so sorry. I wish I hadn’t missed it.”  
  
“What is it, Chris?”  
   
He tapped his phone and Ben’s voice filled the void between them.  
  
“Chris, it’s Ben. Um, something’s come up and I need to leave town. I know it’s sudden and I know I’m being cryptic, but I just need to go. I know I am supposed to start next week, but that’s not possible now. Um, I need to go and be there. Yeah, I just need to go now so I hope you understand. And I’ll call you. I’ll let you know when I have a better idea of something,” there is a pause and Leslie can hear the catch in his voice when he says her name, “And can you tell Leslie for me. I can’t…I can’t right now. Just tell her.”  
  
Chris ends the call and it is Ann who speaks first, “What does that mean? Tell her what. He doesn’t tell us anything. Where is he going?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Chris says, “He’s never been like this before.”  
  
They both look at Leslie who just stares at the space between Ann and Chris. She says it simply, “He’s gone.”  
  
***  
  
Waiting for Ben could have taken over Leslie’s life, but she isn’t going to let it. She is determined to not fall into the pitfalls of a broken heart: days where you don’t get dressed, mountains of chocolate, and endless run of romantic comedies on your television.  
  
Instead, she throws herself at anything that moves. She helps Ron make a canoe and goes with Donna to another one of her singles events ( _she uses a fake name_ ). She accompanies Ann wedding dress shopping and even takes April to lunch ( _April picks this place out of someone’s basement where the only thing you can order is canned crab. Leslie’s not sure it’s a real restaurant._ ). She secures Lil’ Sebastian for the Harvest Festival and had her finger on Ben’s speed dial when she remembers that he doesn’t want to talk to her.  
  
That is the real reason Leslie can’t dwell. She can’t conceive of a world where Ben doesn’t want to talk to her, where she’d messed up that badly. But it existed. It is this world and she knows now that time is her only friend. Time will lessen the sting and when he comes back they will talk. She tells herself that every time the tears clog the back of her throat.  
  
Except he doesn’t come back.  
  
Not by the next week. She was sure he would. He said he wouldn’t be ready to start on Monday and Leslie was sure that meant he’d be back a few days after that. They’d settle everything and he might take a few days to get set-up in his apartment. She would help him pick out dishes and get some curtains. Or maybe they’d forget all that stuff and spend the weeknights in bed, lazily watching the History Channel and laughing over what a dumb ass she’d been.  
  
And then he doesn’t come back the second week either.  
  
It is mid-August now and Leslie is in a panic. No one has heard from him - not her or Chris or the state auditor’s office. She goes through the motions: working with the police department to secure security for the Harvest Festival, bailing Ron out of jail and prying him away from the second Tammy, and negotiating with the Wamapoke tribe chief Ken to put the memorial tent right inside the main gates. She even tries to get out of the house, to stop worrying Ann, and agrees to help Andy on his quest for the perfect orange which ends with them stuck on top Council Houserman’s house again ( _Again, don’t ask_ ).  
  
But none of it drags her mind away from all the possible ways he could be hurt or dead or kidnapped or lured into a cult. She is particularly worried about the last one when she hears about a cult in Minnesota that believes a spaceship in the shape of an eggplant is nearing earth.  
  
“You don’t understand Ann - he’s from Minnesota and he loves eggplant. He’s the perfect recruit…” Leslie tries to argue late one night, but only receives a mumbled reply to go-to-bed-it-is-three-o’clock-in-the-morning.  
  
That’s how the notebook starts.  
  
There are all these things Leslie wants to tell Ben - not just things about them, but about her day. There are conversations they started and she wants to finish, books to recommend, and jokes to remember. And she can’t tell him any of it because he isn’t there so she starts to write them down. It begins with a list of reasons she’s made up for why he hasn’t returned yet:  
  
 _So heart broken you’ll never forgive me…Trapped under a table…Eaten by a bear…Drowned while scuba diving…so mad you’ll never forgive me…Trapped under a table that is guarded by a bear…Drowned while sky diving…So heart broken you’ll never forgive me…_  
  
She fills up the pages on her lunch break since he’s not there to eat lunch with her anymore. At night when she would normally call him with a great idea she writes it all down in her notebook and rereads it over coffee as the sun comes up and in the margins jots down the comments and nerd jokes she knows he’d make in response. It makes the days go by easier. It’s almost like Ben is on vacation and she’s writing him letters for when he gets back.  
  
And it distracts her from trolling websites full of sketches of John Does looking for his unidentified body. That is until she counts the tiny hash marks she’s made inside the front cover of her notebook counting the days since he left and it totals 30. A whole month. Who disappears from their life for a whole month? Without more than a few stumbled thru sentences left on a voicemail? It convinces her that something had to have gone horribly wrong. And so she is back on the John Doe websites and one morning she finds something…  
  
“I think I found him. I think I found Ben,” she walks straight into Ann’s kitchen . She’s been up all night looking at those websites, hoping she is wrong, but she isn’t and she is sure the man in the sketch is Ben. That is if Ben joined a motorcycle gang, shaved his head, and got a tattoo of an ice pick on the side of his face. She slams the paper down on Ann’s kitchen table, spilling the coffee in their cups. She is so intent that she doesn’t notice Chris who walks into the room in his underwear.  
  
“Leslie!” he shrieks like a little girl. He attempts to cover himself before backing out of the room with big, giant steps.  
  
Ann just closes his eyes.  
  
“Were those smiley faces on his underwear?” Leslie tilts her head.  
  
“He says they give his, um, a happy vibe.” Ann swallows hard.  
  
“Does it work?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Huh,” Leslie says, remembers why she really came and slams the table again, “he’s dead Ann. Death by ice pick.”  
  
“That’s a tattoo.”  
  
“No the guy really died by an ice pick. It’s ironic really.”  
  
Ann leans over the printed off sketch, “Why do you think this is Ben?”  
  
“Can’t you see it, it’s in the eyes. Ben can have a really mean glare if you make fun of Star Wars or plaid. And the ice pick…I mean his greatest failure was Ice Town…” Really, why can’t anyone else see this?  
  
“So he got a tattoo of it on his face?” Ann scrunches up her nose.  
  
“Who got a tattoo?” Chris comes into the room, fully dresses this time, “Leslie Knope!” he points a finger at her.  
  
She raises her eyebrows.  
  
“Leslie thinks this John Doe could be Ben.”  
  
Chris doesn’t even look at the picture and takes his green algae breakfast drink out of the refrigerator, “It can’t be Ben.”  
  
“How do you know? Have you heard from him?” Leslie advances.  
  
“No,” Chris shakes his head and leans against the counter, “But I just got an email from my old boss at the auditor’s office. Ben sent him an email yesterday and put in for personal leave.”  
  
“For how long?” Ann asks.  
  
“He didn’t say. He’s been with them for so long and never done anything like this before so he has a lot of time built up.”  
  
“What about the assistant city manager’s job?” Ann asks, her eyes jumping to Leslie.  
  
Chris smiles, “The city of Pawnee doesn’t stop for Ben Wyatt. We must go on so Leslie if you want the job it’s yours. I would have to wait until the Harvest Festival and as long as that’s successful that’ll give me all the reason I need to recommend you to City Council. I know it’s not the way you’d liked to get the job, but I can’t change it and I’d be honored if you’ll have us.”  
  
Leslie doesn’t know what to say and Ann nods her head yes at Leslie. Yes, she should take it. Ben walked away. She didn’t even know if he wanted the job and she did, desperately.  
  
“Um, let’s get through the Harvest Festival and then yes, yes I’ll do it,” Leslie puts on a smile.  
  
Ann gives her a thumbs up and Chris claps his hands once. Leslie turns, picks up the sketch, crumples it up, and when she does she feels like a complete heel.  
  
***  
  
As the Harvest Fest nears Leslie is so busy she can almost forget about Ben. Almost. She still wishes for him during hard meetings and finds herself cooking some of his favorite meals and eating them on her front porch like they used to. Ann frowns a lot and Leslie has to stop writing in the notebook at the office. People keep asking what it is for. But when she is in front of the people of Pawnee, in public forums and working the forms counter (which she regularly volunteers for now) she forgets about Ben. She forgets about herself really and that makes all the difference in the world.  
  
Her friends try to cheer her up. Andy shines her shoes for her and April actually does her work. Ron appeases her and goes to the Snow Globe Museum. Jerry paints a painting of Leslie as the goddess Diaphena, a powerful half-woman half-horse, to remind Leslie of how powerful a woman she is. Leslie takes it home and hangs it above her fireplace. She loves it, and it does work for a while.  
  
And Chris. Bless Chris. No one seems to be more determined than Chris to help Leslie forget Ben.  
  
“It is not good for you to be depressed, Leslie Knope,” he comes into her office one day, “Depression can lead to not eating and not exercising. Besides I feel like this is my fault and I cannot let a fault go unfixed.”  
  
“Why would any of this be your fault?”  
  
“Because I’m the one who offered Ben the job. He seemed so happy here and well,” Chris looks at the ground, “I didn’t want him to leave. He’s been the best partner I ever had and really it was selfish on my part. If I had known it was your idea in the first place, I certainly would have asked you to apply.”  
  
It is a confession of sorts, but Leslie isn’t mad at Chris. In fact his speech endears her to him.  
  
After that Leslie finds Chris to be the best solution, short of Ann, to forgetting Ben. He is overjoyed when she mentions wanting to learn to cross country ski. It is lit-er-ally his favorite winter time activity, besides making snowmen. They set a date for the next Saturday and it becomes a standing one. Ann gets to sleep in and Leslie finds a new partner in her ever lengthening list of things to try. Scuba. Rock climbing. Skeet shooting. Corn husking. Even under water basket weaving. Chris is up for any and all of it. Of course, he’s not Ben ( _or even Ann_ ). He doesn’t do sarcasm or catch irony very well and Leslie finds his optimism a little much at times. But she spends a lot of time around him and Ann and now that they are more established, she finds Ann has relaxed into the relationship. She is less likely to pretend to like something Chris likes and more likely to hand him his flax seed and fish oil and cut herself a piece of cake. For his part, Chris doesn’t lecture or teach, but kiss her on the forehead. And Leslie notices something she didn’t see before, when Chris’ enthusiasm is directed toward Ann, her best friend lights up. One time, after a bad day, they all go to the Snake Hole and Ann orders too many Snake Juices. She is determined to do karaoke despite the fact that it is turned off and Chris dances through her entire rendition of “Danger Zone,” when no one else pays attention. And afterwards he half-carries her home, pressing a kiss to her forehead when no one is looking except Leslie who gives up on her drink and goes home.  
  
Fall comes and Leslie writes about it in her notebook to Ben - about the leaves changing, the last weekend at the public pools, and the turn over of vegetables at the Farmer’s Market. She tells him about how her whole department gets turned upside down when Chris decides to ‘reorganize’ and about the presentation she does to the State Little League Association to try to convince them to move their tournament to Pawnee. They ask her what makes Pawnee so special and she freezes. There are a dozen reasons, hundreds really, but she can’t think of a single thing right in that moment. And, she writes to Ben, afterwards when they don’t get the tournament she still doesn’t know why she froze. She goes to a restaurant Chris recommends and has two glasses of red wine. She sits on the patio at a table with candles on it, and thinks of a conversation they had together, during one of those first few times in his hotel room.  
  
“Go big or go home,” Leslie said, tipped back her beer, “that’s what your sister said to you on election night.”  
  
Ben laughed and crossed his ankles, “Yeah. I asked her what it meant and she said she had no idea. Read it on a fortune cookie one time, but she always took that it meant that when the stakes are highest to bring everything you’ve got. Or go home,” he emptied his beer bottle, set it down.  
  
“But what if home is awesome. What if home is the best place you could go. You’ve got all your things there and your family and your friends. What if home is the place you want to be,” Leslie said, thinking of Pawnee.  
  
Ben shrugged, “I think that’s assuming home never changes. Always stays exactly what you want it to be.”  
  
She drinks her wine and wonders if Ben could have been right. What if things change and home isn’t everything you need anymore?  
  
***  
  
“Ann, are you sure you want an all vegan wedding?”  
  
“I don’t know, I thought it might be fun. A little different.” Ann says. They are sitting in her kitchen with bridal magazines spread out on the table and a fresh legal pad waiting for ideas.  
  
“Yeah,” Leslie drinks her coffee and blanches a little as her stomach revolts, “but what is Ron going to eat?”  
  
“True,” says Ann, “What about a photo booth?”  
  
“Yeah, that could be lots of fun…” Leslie trails off.  
  
Ann cocks her head, “What? Is it Ben again?”  
  
Leslie says nothing. It’s not Ben. It’s more that she feels terrible. Her stomach is cramping and she’s sluggish. Never in her life has Leslie been so tired. There is a flu going around and she’s sure she’s caught it. It does make her think of this summer, the last time she was sick, and Ben had taken care of her. It makes her miss him, but mostly it makes her want to crawl back into bed. The last thing she wants to be doing is wedding planning with Ann.  
  
“It’s been two months. You might just need to accept that he’s not coming back.”  
  
Leslie shakes her head, “No, I can’t do that.”  
  
“Have you at least tried calling him or sending an email.”  
  
No. She hadn’t. They’d been over this a million times before. Leslie had composed a dozen emails and even more phone calls, but what she had to say had to be said in person. What was she supposed to do, leave a message:  _Hey Ben, sorry to run out on you after one of the most incredible nights of my life. I was a mess, but I’m better now so when you get back in town give me a call_ …or… _Ben, you dumb ass why are you still gone? Don’t you know I love you?_ …or… _Ben, it’s Leslie. You need to come back and save Pawnee. We’ve been taken over by rabid raccoons_ …  
  
No, she’d tried a million times to think of the proper way to say it and failed every time. When he was ready to face her, he’d come back. She knew it.  
  
“Leslie,” Ann says softly, “you may not be able to fix this. You may have to just let it go.”  
  
“No,” Leslie says fiercely, “I can’t.”    
  
***  
  
Crap on a spatula, this is not good. Lil’ Sebastian is missing, the media are on her heals, and the power just went out. In the midst of it all, though, Leslie stops and checks her phone. No email.  
  
Damnit.  
  
But she doesn’t have time for that. She is in the midst of the biggest project of her career, a make it or break it moment, and she needs to focus. She stops in the middle of the thoroughfare and closes her eyes. Get it together, Knope. All around her at the sounds of the Harvest Festival: the clink of wooden pins being knocked down, the pinging of hammers, and Andy and April arguing about something.  
  
“But that’s what makes the sauce awesome.”  
  
“Ron,” April yells, “tell Andy I’m not talking to him.”  
  
She plugs her ears and tires to block it all out. She can do this. No one got her here but her. All she needs to do is put one foot in front of the other and then…  
  
God, this would be easier if Ben were here.  
  
But he isn’t. And Leslie is partially glad he isn’t. She is going to get herself out of this. She is going to pull off Harvest Fest. It will be her thing. Ben bailed. He left her in a lurch and while in her calmer moments, Leslie can’t blame him, right now she needs leverage to keep from sinking from all of the disarray and Ben Wyatt is perfect leverage.  
  
Screw him for leaving.  
  
Screw him for being so broken up that he runs away.  
  
Screw him for giving up so easily.  
  
That’s it, Leslie thinks. Screw him and and everyone else who gives up so easily. Who falters on the first misstep. Who decides to believe the worst in people, in life really, because it is easier. Because it is safer. Screw all of them.  
  
Because if Leslie were like them, she’d never have conceived of something like the Harvest Festival. She’d never have pitched the assistant city manager’s job and she wouldn’t have helped save Pawnee from a budget crisis.  
  
Her strengths are exactly who she is, not her experience or resume. Her intangible qualities make her who she is and no one can take that away from her. So Leslie clears her mind and thinks through, logically step by step, how to fix each problem. She thinks about reallocating resources and the management of personalities and by the time she opens her eyes again, Leslie knows what to do.  
  
What she doesn’t realized that while the pep talk she just gave herself is all Leslie, the strategic problem solving she employed is all learned from Ben.

***

The email comes just as the power goes back on for the Harvest Festival and Leslie breathes normally for the first time in a week. It is a tiny beep of her blackberry and she’s sure it is Tom telling her it was Jerry’s fault Lil’ Sebastian was lost so she ignores it for a few minutes. Finally she gets a chance and steps aside between two booths. And what she sees catches her breath.  
  
It is the phone number for Karla, out in D.C. It is her only lead on where Ben might be. She doubts he has gone back to her, but at this point Leslie didn’t know what else to do. She’d tried calling Jenny Wyatt, thinking surely home would be where Ben would go for this long, but every time she called all she got was the answering machine and she didn’t have enough nerves to leave a message.  
  
But perhaps he and Karla had stayed in touch…  
  
Maybe he did end up taking that job in D.C. after all….  
  
Leslie called in a favor at the governor’s office and gotten a college friend to look in Karla’s HR file (a breech of personal privacy, Leslie was well aware of that) for a forwarding address and phone number.  
  
And there it is. Her last tenuous idea of how to find Ben.  
  
But she doesn’t open it right away. She leaves it until after the Harvest Festival. This is her celebration, her blood, sweat, and tears and she is going to enjoy it. When Ben left he might have taken a part of her heart with him, but he didn’t get to have her whole world too.  
  
And for seven whole days Leslie immerses herself in the thousands of people who come out for something she put together. She greets people as they stream in, rides the ferris wheel, plays the games, and sits on a bench and watches. Simply watches. Grandmothers and grandchildren. New couples in love. Teenagers. Families. She watches them, hedges the corners of their memories, and at night writes to Ben about it in her notebook. She tries to put into words what it means to her, to see these strangers so happy. It fills her and fulfills her at the same time. This, she wrote, is what I was fighting for when we first met. When you saw numbers, I saw this.  
  
And finally, after seven days she sits down, opens the email, and makes the call.  
  
“Hello?”  
  
“Hello, Karla?”  
  
“Yes…” it is tentative.  
  
Leslie sits up as if good posture might mean something over the phone, “You don’t know me, but we have someone in common. Ben Wyatt.”  
  
There is a gulp and quiet, “What about Ben Wyatt?”  
  
“He’s missing.”  
  
“What do you mean he’s missing?” There is panic in her voice and Leslie thinks maybe Karla is not the ambitious viper she always pictured her to be.  
  
“He’s not missing exactly. He left two months ago and no one has heard or seen him since. Not any of his friends. No one.”  
  
“Did someone call the police?”  
  
Leslie flusters, “No. He’s put in for leave at work, but it’s been two months and he hasn’t called or anything. He just walked out on his life.”  
  
“And you think he came here?” There is disbelief in her voice, “Who is this anyway? Jenny?”  
  
“No,” Leslie rubs a temple and squeezes her eyes shut. She realizes now that she doesn’t know if Karla ever knew about her and Ben, “Um, my name is Leslie, Leslie Knope and I am a friend of Ben’s. A colleague too. In Pawnee, Indiana.”  
  
“Yeah, I know who you are.” The voice changes. It hardens, goes remote, the way Leslie pictured her to be, “Yeah, I know who you are” The laugh is caustic.    
  
“I’m sorry, did I miss something?”  
  
“Didn’t he tell you you’re the reason we broke up? Did you think at all when you slept with him that there was a girl who loved him already, who had put in the time and the effort to fix him…”  
  
“First off, Ben and I were nothing but friends when you two were dating. We never slept together…then,” Leslie hopes she won’t notice the caveat, “And second, Ben doesn’t need fixing. I don’t know what you convinced yourself off, but he isn’t a project. He’s a man. A person.”  
  
She is standing now, in her living room, pacing, and Karla is yelling about lies and how dense could Leslie be and Leslie is thinking this whole plan has gone terribly awry. This woman knows nothing about Ben’s whereabouts and she is about to hang up, to drop the line when Karla gets in one last word…  
  
“You think you know him. You think you’ve got some sweet man. I saw those texts. But know he’s not so perfect. He’s angry and bitter and sad. And if you think that all goes away just cause you love him, trust me it isn’t true. Your love is not enough to hold him together. He gives up and he leaves when things get hard. Runs away. He did it after Ice Town and he did it to me. I tried, I tried my damnedest, to get him to stick with something, to stick with me so we could have a life together, but he chose you. And if you screwed that up then you screwed him up more than I ever could…”  
  
Finally, Leslie’s thumb hits the end button and she stands there in the half-shadowed light of her living room, her mouth in that o, hand wrapped around her neck. She stands there, doesn’t cry because she is in too much shock to do that, and finally after two months realizes that he isn’t coming back.  
  
***  
  
“I’m sorry Leslie,” Jerry sighs, “I thought bed and breakfast was open. Gail brought me here for our anniversary and it was…”  
  
“Ewww, Jerry, I don’t want to know,” Leslie holds up a hand. Around her stands her team, Ann, and Chris with their camping gear strapped to their backs. They look to her, tired and weary. Above them there is a clap of thunder. This camping trip was supposed to replenish them after the Harvest Festival, fuel them and give them new ideas. It is her last official project before starting the assistant city manager job and it is not going well.  
  
That’s because Ben’s not here. Her thoughts betray her and she pushes them away. Ben has nothing to do with any of this and nothing in her life has anything to do with him anymore. That’s because you gave up…  
  
Again with the thoughts.  
  
Right now, too many eyes are look at her waiting for their next move. Tom had run the battery on the van dry and the sign on the bed and breakfast said it had been condemned because of an over population of cats. So now they are back at their campsite and the first drops of rain are starting to fall. But before Leslie can formulate a plan, nature takes over.  
  
“I call dibs on the van,” April yells. They all clamor into the van as the sky drops open and the rain lets loose.  
   
Leslie gets a window seat on the back bench with Tom squished between her and Donna.  
  
“Now what?” April calls out from somewhere in the front of the van.  
  
“I brought my guitar!” Andy twists from the driver seat.  
  
“Oh, do you know any banjo music?” Chris sits forward, but Ann puts a hand on his shoulder.  
  
“Why don’t we all close our eyes and pretend we’re not in hell,” Ron says.  
  
“Let’s all just go to sleep,” Leslie says and there are mummers of agreement. She blanches as her stomach turns over, but no one notices because of the darkness. There is rustling as everyone moves to get comfortable and then a tap on Leslie’s shoulder.  
  
“Leslie?”  
  
“Yeah, Tom.”  
  
“I am going to sleep on your shoulder and in no way do I want you to think that I am hitting on you.”  
  
“Thanks for clearing that up,” She deadpans, but Tom is already nestling into her shoulder and she can do nothing but lean against the window and watch the rain fall.  
  
This is a disaster, a complete unmitigated one, and she doesn’t know which she hates more: that her last act as assistant deputy director of the parks department failed or that she wishes Ben were here. It feels like a betrayal to herself that she keeps thinking of him when she stressed out or bored or excited or really any time. It’s been a couple weeks since her phone call to Karla. Why couldn’t she give him up?  
  
He’d obviously given her up. Thoroughly.  
  
Leslie bites her lip because her stomach really does hurt and she is tired and stuck in a van.  
  
Somewhere in the night she does fall asleep and she dreams of Ben, of kissing him and the feel of his arms tightening around her when they slept. She remembered the grip of his fingers on her hips and the heat of his breath on her neck. And the things he said to her in the darkness that night: You are beautiful, you make me happy, this is everything…  
  
“Leslie…Leslie!”  
  
“What? I’m here. I’m at attention,” Leslie sits up straight. She touches her neck, feels the heat still lingering there. It is morning, the light peaks through the trees, and Tom is looking at her strangely.  
  
“Were you having a nightmare?”  
  
“Why?” She looks at him slanted, careful to keep her face very, very still.  
  
“Because you were moaning and making strange sounds all night. It sounded terrible,” he shudders.  
  
“Yeah, it was a nightmare. Monsters and all sorts of scary things…” she exhales and pushes her hair out of her eyes.  
  
“Ron’s managed some sort of breakfast and Ann got reception on her cell phone. The park rangers are here to jump start the van. Come on,” he motions.  
  
“Just give me a moment,” Leslie says and Tom shrugs.  
  
Alone in the van, Leslie puts her head between her knees and whimpers a little. This. Has. Got. To. Stop. She tells herself it over and over. She has got to get over him. It’s been almost three months. To be exact: two months, thirteen days, and a few hours. She hadn’t looked at a clock yet.  
  
If she just closes her eyes she can see his face right before he stepped out of the bedroom to go get her breakfast food, the silly, happy grin and small wave good bye. His hair had been tousled from sleep and his t-shirt wrinkled. But he’d been happy, perfect Ben. And she’d popped that illusion like a ballon. Sucking the air right out of any possibility.  
  
But, she thinks angrily, he left too. He left and never came back. Left without even trying. If she was so important, if they were so important to him, how could he not at least fight a little harder? Why run so quickly?  
  
She holds onto that thought, tries to think of him as a fascist tard ass, her first impression of him. Tries to undo all the moments in her head and pause it on anger and annoyance. She’s so preoccupied she doesn’t see the other vehicle parked at the camp site, doesn’t see that it is a Pawnee police car and not a park ranger. She certainly doesn’t see the man standing next to Ron in the front of the van pointing to something under the hood.  
  
He sees her first and he says her name in that way, that quiet, kind-of-nervous way that always made her heart melt a little, “Hey Leslie.”  
  
And her mouth forms a little o and she has a fleeting thought that the gods must be crazy, to give her such a perfect and ironic gift that when she opens her mouth to say his name, she throws up.  
  
***  
  
It turns out Dave hasn’t changed. He’s still unbelievably understanding and more than a little awkward.  
  
“I hope you don’t take the fact that I threw up to mean I’m not happy to see you,” Leslie says when he hands her a water bottle and sinks down next to her on the wet log. They sat back a ways from everyone else.  
  
“Ah no, I didn’t. I figure you ate something bad,” he twists his flashlight around in his hands. She’s not sure why he has it out; the sun is up, but she presses on.  
  
“How long have you been back?”  
  
“A few weeks. Just got back in the rotation with the department,” he pauses, “this is my first shift actually.”  
  
Leslie laughs, “That’s ironic.”  
  
“Yeah, especially since ever since I got back I’ve been wondering if I might run into you,” He fumbles the flashlight, “hoping really.”  
  
Leslie brightens and smiles to herself, “That’s good to hear.”  
  
“It is?” He sits up and turns to her, “then I might not be as crazy as the guys think I am. They heard there was this guy…”  
  
“There’s no guy.” Leslie says it quickly, too quickly, but Dave doesn’t notice.  
  
“Then maybe we could go out for coffee. Catch up?” He rocks a little when he says it.  
  
Leslie smiles, “I’d like that.”  
  
***  
  
The first day of Leslie Knope, assistant city manager, is the same day she agrees to her first date with Dave.  
  
This turns out to be a bad idea.  
  
She throws up on the way to work, at work, and on the way home from work. The day itself is inconsequential, which makes Leslie a bit sad. A lot of the job is paper work and numbers, which she can do but doesn’t like. A lot of the job is people, pitch hitting for Chris or turning what Chris promised into realistic expectations. Even after a day of turning people down, saying no, and outright laughing when Joe from Sewage asks if they can have a fleet of vans, she begins to understand why Ben was the way he was.  
  
Did people not know how little money there was?  
  
Did they think their department was the only one with needs?  
  
Why did they take it so personally when she turned them down?  
  
Ann meets her at her house with wardrobe options and encouragement.  
  
“This is really good for you, Leslie. To start dating again and besides Dave is a great guy,” she follows Leslie through the house and up to her bedroom.  
  
“We never went out on a date,” Leslie stops and spins, “do you realize that? I had a whole relationship with a man and never once did he take me out on a date.”  
  
Ann’s head twitches a little, and Leslie knows what she’s thinking, that Ben did take her out dozens of times, for dinners and documentaries and scavenger hunts thru Pawnee. She just never let him call them a date.  
  
But Ann, beautiful Ann, doesn’t say that. She says exactly what Leslie needs to hear right now, “That asshole,”  
  
“Thank you, Ann.”  
  
“You’re welcome.”  
  
But it didn’t alleviate the guilt she felt because Dave is a really nice guy and they’ve done this dance before and it didn’t work out then, why would it work out now?  
  
As if Ann could read her thoughts (she really thought Ann might have super powers sometimes…) she hands Leslie a dress and sinks onto the bed, “And you can’t go into tonight thinking about last time. This is a fresh start. Dave wouldn’t have asked you out if he didn’t want to try again.”  
  
“You’re right,” Leslie comes out of her closet trying to get the dress to zip up, “Can you help me with this?”  
  
Ann comes to help her. The zipper is caught on her chest, “That’s funny,” Ann says, “You wore this dress for our engagement party. Are you near your period?”  
  
Leslie frowns, “I can never remember that stuff,” she stops Ann, “I’m going to go into the bathroom and do a whole bunch of unlady like moves to get this dress on.”  
  
“You don’t have to wear this one,” Ann says and pulls out a familiar navy blue one.  
  
No, that was the one she wore this summer the night she and Ben decided to become friends. Like every other dress Ann had brought and every dress Leslie had in her closet there was a memory of Ben attached to it. This dress she’d bought after Ben. He’d never seen it on her, never commented that it looked nice, and for that reason she was determined to wear it tonight. Leslie goes into the bathroom and begins to pull and tug and beg the zipper to close over her suddenly ginormous boobs. She promises to lay off all things Sweetums and even cut back on the whipped cream (only cut back) and finally the dress zips and Leslie exhales. Sort of. But she stands there before the mirror and gives a mental, Take that, Ben Wyatt, just before she throws up.  
  
When she comes out of the bathroom, Ann has raised eyebrows, “Maybe you should reschedule.”  
  
Leslie leans on the door jam for support, “No,” she waves a hand, “this is the fourth time today. I’m fine. It’s just nerves.”  
  
Ann sits back and tilts her head. Leslie can see her mind processing. She’s got that nurse face on, the one that is running through checklists and charts. Leslie ignores her and starts to dig around for a necklace. Nothing too fancy; it’s just coffee. She finds a necklace, puts it on, looks in the mirror, and gapes at her giant cleavage. Maybe she’ll forgo the necklace and settle for a shawl…  
  
Dave comes to the door and just before she descends the stairs to answer it, Ann grabs her by the arm, “Promise me you won’t drink coffee.”  
  
“But we’re going to coffee?”  
  
Ann’s eyes dart, “I’m just worried about your stomach. All that caffeine isn’t good for it. Promise me.”  
  
“Okay,” Leslie frowns and starts to turn, but Ann persists.  
  
“And don’t drink. No alcohol either.”  
  
“Okay, I’ll lay off all the shots I’d planned on drinking.”  
  
“And Leslie,” Ann calls out, “come over to my house afterwards. Please. No matter how late. Promise?”  
  
Leslie stops on the stairs. Ann looks nervous and she wonders if there is something she needs to tell her, something about her and Chris. Ann probably didn’t want to ruin Leslie’s date so she’s waiting until afterward. Beautiful, beautiful Ann. “Okay,” she says and Ann gives a forced smile, but Leslie doesn’t worry about it. She’s probably just worried about whatever it is she needs to tell Leslie, “Wish me luck,” she waves.  
  
Ann doesn’t wave back.  
  
***  
  
Leslie has to hand it to Dave. He only checks out her chest three times over coffee. She checks it out more than that. When he’s paying for the coffee (she gets a muffin and juice, he says she’s changed, and she lets it go) and when he goes to the bathroom and a few other times when he’s not looking she glances down at her ginormous chest. Definitely laying off the meals between meals, she thinks. And maybe Chris can get her on some sort of exercise program…  
  
The date itself was lovely. They could always find things to talk about and with a whole year and a handful of months to catch up on, they had plenty to talk about. Leslie edited her version, kept Ben out of it completely. If things progressed, she’d tell Dave about him, but for now she didn’t want too. It was too complicated, too heavy, and frankly, not clear even to her.  
  
He drives home and walks around to her car door to let her out. They say good night there on her side walk and he doesn’t try to kiss her. Just a hug and one stolen glance at her chest (which Leslie allows, even encourages a little) and then a sincere, We should do this again sometime and he is gone.  
  
She doesn’t know how she feels about it except that it was nice and pleasant and if anything satisfying. Ben Wyatt was not the only guy in the world.  
  
When she gets to Ann’s she’s prepared to report, but when Ann answers the door and let’s her in she doesn’t even ask about the date. Instead, she has a list of questions.  
  
“How much sleep have you been getting lately?”  
  
“A lot, like six or seven hours,” Leslie sits down.  
  
Chris frowns from his chair at the dining room table and Ann explains that is a lot for Leslie.  
  
“It’s because of this flu. I can’t seem to get rid of it.”  
  
“Leslie, did you ever have a temperature?”  
  
She shakes her head, “I don’t think so. I don’t know. Why are you asking me this?”  
  
Ann sighs and sits on the arm of her couch, “One last question, Leslie when was the last time you had your period?”  
  
Leslie stands up, “Ewww, Ann you know I don’t like to track that stuff. It’s gross.”  
  
“Actually, Leslie a woman’s menstruation cycle…”  
  
“Chris,” both Leslie and Ann shout and he shuts up.  
  
“Leslie, when was the last time you had your period?” Ann repeats.  
  
And it dawns on Leslie slowly, like the coming of a long wave, and she presses her hands to her stomach and then touches her neck and her hair and sinks back down onto the couch, “Too long.”  
  
“How long?” Ann sits next to her and grasps both her hands.  
  
“I don’t remember,” she shakes her head. She really can’t.  
  
“You know what this means, right?” Ann looks at her.  
  
Leslie nods slowly. She fights to stay calm. For once in her life she has no words, no thoughts other than breathe, breathe, breathe.  
  
Ann snaps her fingers, “Chris, my purse okay?”  
  
Chris brings it and looks interested, like Leslie were a strange bird, “Why does she look like that?” he asks.  
  
“Because she’s in shock…” Ann is digging around in her purse, pulls out a kit, and hands it to Leslie, “This is a pregnancy kit. From the hospital. I want you to go pee in the cup and we’ll test it right here. Okay?”  
  
“Pregnancy is a beautiful thing, Leslie,” Chris says, “Even if the circumstances aren’t perfect like right now, life is a miraculous gift.”  
  
“You know what, Chris,” Leslie stands. The color is coming back into her face and she can breathe again and poor Chris just happens to be standing right in front of her when it does. She advances on him, “It doesn’t feel like a gift. It feels like a rug has just been pulled out from underneath me and no one asked me if I liked it. No one asked me if I wanted the rug or not. Maybe I liked the rug the way it was and maybe I always thought about having a rug, but not until I had run for office and gotten married and been elected president. Maybe this rug is scary and I don’t know…I don’t know what to do with a rug like this one. I don’t know…I just don’t know.” And she is weeping now and standing in front of her boss, mascara running down her face and snot dripping from her nose, and she takes big heaping sobs because she doesn’t want to be crying, not about a baby, but she is because it is sad and she is sad.  
  
And Chris, bless him, opens his arms and Leslie steps into him and Ann steps behind her so that Leslie is sandwiched between them and she cries into Chris’ ridiculously expensive and soft bamboo t-shirt and let’s it out.  
  
“Shhhh, Leslie,” Chris pats her hair and Leslie can feel Ann doing the same, “don’t worry about your career. People will understand.”  
  
Of course Chris thinks she is concerned about her image, but she isn’t. Not right now. Now she is trying to wrap her mind around the fact that there is a child growing inside her.  
  
But Leslie forgives him for his mistake because everything else is right and the three of them stand there for a very long time.  
  
***  
  
Sometime that night, or morning, Leslie can’t really be sure, she leaves Chris and Ann’s house. They’ve taken the pregnancy test, confirmed the conception date, and figured that Leslie is twelve weeks along.  
  
Three whole months.  
  
How did she not know for three months?  
  
Because she is on the pill.  
  
Because it was one night.  
  
Because she’s never been good at this stuff. Women stuff. Oh, she could do makeup and hair and shop for a decent outfit and she certainly didn’t think of herself as masculine, but she wasn’t feminine. She was a feminist. She had a ball-busting mother and she wore power suits. She didn’t do soft.  
  
But she is softer than Marlene. Leslie knew that, prided herself on it, but that didn’t mean that caring came easy for her.  
  
What was it that Ann said to her, that Leslie was one of the most caring people she knew?  
  
What Ann doesn’t realize that there is a difference between taking care of someone and caring for them. Taking care of someone is a single action repeated over and over. Caring for someone is putting your life, your heart, on the line for the sake of the other. She took care of her friends, of the parks, of Pawnee. She could do that from a distance, like she had at the Harvest Festival. But putting aside all the things you’d ever dreamed of because someone else existed, that she wasn’t ready for.  
  
She ends up on those swings again, in the rarely frequented, slightly run-down park, under the moonlight. This time she takes her sneakers and socks off and lets her toes sink down into the cold sand. She swings with vigor this time, going over and over in her head how this was going to work.  
  
Ben isn’t coming back.  
  
She is starting a new job.  
  
But she had her friends. Her beautiful and wonderful friends. She had Pawnee and she could have this child here in Pawnee, the greatest place on earth. Maybe she couldn’t have the career, the man, and the family. But, Leslie muses as she swings higher and higher above the earth, as gravity tilts a little and her heart leaps at the ideas forming in her head, perhaps she could have two out of the three.  
  
“And sweetheart,” she says as she reaches higher than she’s ever reached before, “this is your first lesson. This is called flying.”    
  
***  
  
Leslie doesn’t think of Ben really for several weeks. She thinks only of her and the baby. For some reason, it doesn’t feel like Ben’s baby. She says something about this to Ann and Ann says it’s a coping mechanism. That Leslie can only process so much at one time.  
  
Leslie thinks of it as a gift.  
  
Ann and Chris (she really has no idea how he ended up becoming so integral but the man is so damn happy for her that it’s hard to resist) take her to her first appointment. They are both in the room when she hears the heart beat for the first time. She and Chris cry and Ann holds their hands. She keeps the grainy picture clipped on the inside of her padfolio.  
  
They don’t tell anyone right away. It’s like Ben all over again - she doesn’t want to tell anybody as if telling would make this wonderful, terrible secret disappear from thin air, poof! She tacks a piece of butcher paper up to the wall of her dining room and begins making lists, but it doesn’t feel right. It feels artificial and contrived, like she’s planning a really bad birthday party no one is going to want to go to.  
  
So she turns back to the notebook.  
  
She had put it away the morning of her date with Dave. Told herself it was time to move on, but out it comes again.  
  
The first few entries aren’t for Ben. They don’t even acknowledge that Ben exists. Instead, she relates how she found out, how wonderful Ann and Chris have been, and how she is now noticing all the ways her body is changing. She hasn’t gained too much weight yet (except in the boobs), but her shape is shifting. She has a pooch now where she hadn’t before. She  
drags through afternoon meetings and on Saturday mornings she and Chris begin a series of stretching exercises for the lady parts that he read would help for a natural birth.  
  
Leslie didn’t have the heart to tell him she was getting an epideral.  
  
And that Ann was secretly filming him demonstrate the stretches on their living room floor. You know, just in case blackmail is ever necessary.  
  
But sometime in November, after their first dinner date, Dave kisses Leslie goodnight.  
  
It isn’t a bad kiss. If anything it is familiar, like the street your grandmother lives on, but it wasn’t anything to write home about either. She can’t remember if she felt this…ordinary about Dave’s kisses before. She doesn’t think so.  
  
And she writes as much in the notebook. She writes it and then rereads it and realizes this isn’t healthy. She writes that if Ben were to every actually read this here should be the point that he realizes what an ass he is.  
  
Here is the tipping point: she is caring his child and writing to him in a journal he’ll never see about kissing another man.  
  
And it’s all his fault.  
  
It comes out in that looped, slanted half-cursive, half-print writing she has, that sometimes runs off the page. She writes it in purple pen because she knew that would drive him crazy (he always insisted on blue or black. She thought that was square.)  
  
How dare he leave her like this.  
  
How dare he not realize she was pregnant.  
  
How dare he stay away now that he knew.  
  
Except he didn’t know.  
  
But that didn’t stop her from thinking he should just know, like omniscience or something. Now that she knew about this baby, how could he not? It could only be willful ignorance. It was one thing to leave her. It was another thing to leave their child.  
  
Of course, Leslie knows none of these thoughts are reasonable. She also knows they weren’t the product of hormones. They are the product of grief. She needed to be mad at him, even if it was just in private and even if it was just for a little while, because she had been so close to shutting the door on him, on them.  
  
And while her heart is fuller than she could ever imagine it being, it is now even more vulnerable. And that is all his fault.     
  
***  
  
“Ah, Leslie are you alright?”  
  
“Huh? Oh, I’m sorry Dave,” Leslie sits straight up and wipes her mouth with her napkin. They are in a fancy restaurant, one with a white table cloth and candles, and all she can think of is how much she wants to be at home, in bed, asleep.  
  
“If you want to make it an early night…” he says.  
  
Leslie takes and deep breath and exhales. No, that’s not what she wants. She wants to be up for this, all this, with him. But she’s not and she knows it. And she thinks he knows it.  
  
“Dave…” she starts and he blusters, shakes his head and drops his napkin on the table.  
  
“Don’t, you don’t have too. I know. This isn’t working.”  
  
“I’m so sorry. It’s not you…”  
  
“It’s someone else, right?” He squints a little as if waiting for the blow.  
  
Leslie nods and hopes it lands lightly. He works his jaw up and down for a moment, looks at the ground.  
  
“I thought you said the other guy…”  
  
“He’s gone,” and she exhales, “but he’s lingering more than I anticipated.”  
  
“Well, he’s a dumb ass for leaving.”  
  
Leslie shrugs, “It’s more complicated than that. I was the dumb ass first.”  
  
“Well, why haven’t you gone to him then?”  
  
***  
  
Leslie decides to leave out the part of how she finally got the courage to do this from an ex-boyfriend.  
  
It is the the day before Thanksgiving and Leslie sits in a rental car across the street from Ben’s childhood home. She is hunkered down in the driver seat, baseball cap smashed onto her head, and giant sunglasses on her face. She feels as ridiculous as she knows she looks, but she doesn’t want Ben to recognize her until she is ready.    
  
She spent the entire plane ride writing out a script and everything she tried sounded terrible.  
  
Now don’t be mad but…  
  
I know I should have called…  
  
I’m pregnant. And it’s yours.  
  
With that last one she planned on saying it and then running out the front door.  
  
She also entertained the thought of buying a one way plane ticket to England or the Great Barrier Reef to go scuba diving. You can scuba dive while pregnant, right?  
  
But she doesn’t do any of that. Instead, she musters up the courage and drives from Minneapolis/St. Paul to Partridge. She checks into a motel and eats at Jenny’s Lunch Box (no relation to Ben’s Jenny), his favorite place to eat growing up. She gets a salad because Ann told her to eat more vegetables and a calzone because it was Ben said it was their specialty (it’s still hard to eat). She rereads the notebook, paging through the last few months, and writes out a new entry, one where she explains to fictional Ben that she had no real expectations from real life Ben. No personal expectations really - of forgiveness or reciprocation.  
  
She just wants him to know that he was going to be a father.  
  
The rest is up to him.  
  
In the morning she drives around Partridge, down its main streets and through its parks. She wanders onto the football field of Ben’s high school (he’d played in the band and she kind of loves him for that). She goes past the Lutheran church he’d grown up going too until Jenny got sick and the ice cream parlor where he’d had his first kiss (Cindy Eckhart in the second grade). And finally she ends up here, in this subdivision built sometime in the late seventies with low slung ranch houses set on large lots, in front of Ben’s home.  
  
There are pots sitting on the front porch, next to a swing, but in the November weather the plants in them are dead. Leslie sees that Jenny hasn’t taken them in to protect them from the frost which she thinks is odd because Jenny is an expert gardener. Ben always talked about how her garden yielded the best vegetables and beautiful flowers. Leslie knows its true because she maybe, might have walked around to the back of the house like a crazy person and seen the expertly covered beds. There is a screened in porch with the twinkle lights strung up (that’s Ben’s handiwork). She sees the patio furniture Ben’s dad built so long ago and the new cushions Jenny had made for them this summer. And toward the back of the yard there is a giant oak tree and a swing Ben told her about. He used to swing on it as a kid. He and Jenny would pretend they were riding to the moon together on that swing. And the fact that it is still there makes her tear up.  
  
But now she’s in her car, waiting for someone to come home. There are no cars in the driveway or the garage (which is neat and organized, Leslie knew the OCD had to run in the family) and she guesses they are out for one last run to the grocery store. It really never occurs to Leslie that Ben won’t be here. It’s Thanksgiving and there is no way he’d be away from his sister on Thanksgiving.  
  
Leslie feels a pang of guilt because she left Marlene alone for the weekend. She’d finally broken down and told her mother about the baby and Marlene took it like a sucker punch to the jaw, a little dazed but got back up and started to plan Leslie’s future career possibilities. Leslie loved her mother for it and knew it was Marlene’s way of coping. She’d come around to the softer things, the more important facts of becoming a grandmother, with time.  
  
And maybe, if this all goes terribly she will be home in time for Thanksgiving. She doesn’t expect an invitation and hopes not to ruin the holiday too much by showing up, but she couldn’t wait till Christmas.  
  
And then there is a car. Leslie pretends to look for something in her purse and glances up with bated breath to see it pull into the driveway. From the driver side a man steps out, a man that is decidedly not Ben. She exhales, but then she sees Jenny. It has to be Jenny. The woman is petite and dark haired, thin and pale. Definitely Ben’s sister. Leslie is thankful for the roll down windows in her economy rental and she cracks her window just enough to hear them as they unload groceries.  
  
“When did Ben say he’d be here with Trudy?” Jenny asks the man.  
  
“A few hours I think. The drive up from Rochester isn’t fast.”  
  
“He’s been so good to her over the last few months,” Jenny sighs and hefts a grocery bag onto her hip, “She’s lucky to have him.”  
  
The man stops and hovers over her. He takes the bag from her and replaces it with a gentle hand to her hip, “You know I’d do the same for you.” And then he reaches down and kisses her, a gentle, intimate kiss that makes Leslie feel like a leech for watching.  
  
They break the kiss and Jenny smiles happily, swats the man’s butt, and says, “Come on, let’s get inside it’s cold.”  
  
They go into the house and Leslie forces herself to breathe.  
  
Trudy? Like Trixie or Roxy or…hell even Karla. Who names their child Trudy? What kind of woman is a Trudy?  
  
Leslie licks her lips and grips the steering wheel. It doesn’t matter what kind of woman Trudy is because obviously Ben loves her. He went to her and has been with her all these months. He is bringing her home for Thanksgiving. And Leslie is going to show up and announce to his family and girlfriend that she, the one-night stand, is carrying his child?  
  
She closes her eyes and wills herself not to cry. She. Will. Not. Be. That. Woman.  
  
But she can’t tell him over the phone or in an email. She just can’t. She has to do it in person. She has to be there, to see his face, and try to explain. And then the stray thought enters her head and Leslie leaps on it, though later it will become a terrible, terrible idea, but for now grabs hold of it as if it were a life buoy.  
  
Maybe he wouldn’t want to know about the baby…  
  
Obviously he’s happy to leave everything behind him, to quit a life of twelve years, to go to Rochester and be with this Trudy. When he came to Pawnee he was looking to walk away from his life, wasn’t he? He was going to move to D.C. and start anew with Karla. Who is to say he didn’t do the same in Rochester, but with this Trudy woman?  
  
Leslie latches onto the idea because it gets her out of having to do it. She doesn’t have to be the other woman. She just can’t do it.  
  
She watches the house for a long moment and she makes a decision. She digs through her bags until she finds some stationary, notecards from work that she was using to write thank you cards on, and writes a note. She uses her purple pen, a tiny form of independence, and makes sure to write legibly.  
  
Jenny,  
  
You don’t know me, but I know you…well of you from your brother Ben. I don’t have any right, but I am asking for your help. He and I used to be very close and I hurt him quite badly. If he is happy now, I don’t want to ruin that. I want him to be happy more than anything. But if there is room in his life for something more, then please tell him that I need to talk to him. I desperately need to talk to him. What I have to say needs to be said in person, but I don’t want to just show up in his life if he’s happy. So please tell him about this note, show it to him, if you think it would be good for him. If not, then please forget I ever wrote it.  
  
Thank you,  
  
Leslie Knope  
Pawnee, Indiana  
  
Leslie writes Jenny’s name on the front and seals it. She puts it into the mailbox and without a last look behind her, drives away. Her last fleeting thought as she leaves Partridge is that it is very odd Jenny Wyatt forgot to take those pots in.


	7. Chapter 7

“Hello?”  
  
“Is this Leslie Knope?” the woman on the other end of the line pronounces the K in her last name.  
  
Leslie straightens. She is in line to board the plane from Minneapolis/St.Paul back to Indianapolis, “Yes,” she says carefully.  
  
“Do you know a Ben Wyatt?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
She presses a hand over her other ear to drown out the airport loudspeaker.  
  
“I’m the manager of his apartment complex, Shady Hills off Third. Name’s Regina.”  
  
“Ah,” she stammers, “how can I help you?”  
  
“I was wondering if you knew how to get a hold of him?”  
  
Leslie drops the hand holding her phone to her side and rubs the bridge of her nose. Could life get any more ironic? She lifts the phone and tucks it underneath her chin, “No, I don’t. Why?”  
  
The woman on the other end of the line blows a breath, “Well, I have a package for him.”  
  
“How did you get my number?”  
  
“You’re listed as his emergency contact after his sister, Jenny Wyatt.”  
      
“Have you tried calling her?”  
  
“Yeah for a few weeks and there’s not answer,” the woman sounds annoyed, “Listen, I’m not going to complain. The man pays his rent on time. If he doesn’t want to actually live there that’s not my business, but I have a pile of mail for him. It’s filled up his mailbox and the mailman is up my ass to get him to empty it. And now there is this package that’s been sitting in my office for a few weeks now and I just want it out. Can you tell him that?”  
  
Leslie fumbles and digs in her purse, “Um, so he’s still paying rent at his apartment?”  
  
“Yeah. On time first of every month he sends a check. Wish all my residents were that prompt.”  
  
She finds what she is looking for, her keys, and flips through them until she finds the one she almost forgot she had. His apartment key. He’d given it to her when he first signed the lease in case he locked himself out. She holds up the key, stares at it, and says, “This is going to be a weird question, but the lease Ben signed is there any way he could get out of it?”  
  
“What? Why?” the woman sounds panicky.  
  
“He’s not trying to,” Leslie says quickly, “I’m looking for an apartment of my own and I was just wondering cause I travel a lot for work and so I need a place that I could break the lease if I needed too,” the lie comes easier than she thought it would.  
  
The woman is calmer, “Of course there is a clause in his lease if he wants to break. He’d have to pay the $200 fee, but that’s it.”  
  
Leslie tucks the phone under her chin and digs for her plane ticket, hands it to the stewardess, and enters the tunnel toward the aircraft, “And how many months left on his lease?”  
  
“He signed an 18 month lease in August so,” she counts.  
  
Leslie reaches the answer before she does, “Fourteen months,” she presses a hand to her head, “He’s out of the country right now on business so I’ll come by next week and pick up the package. I’ve got a key to his place. I’ll leave it there for him.”  
  
The woman sounds suspicious, “How do you know him?”  
  
“We work together,” she says and hangs up.  
  
***  
  
She goes straight to his apartment. Ann is with Chris’ family for the holiday and Ron is with Andy and April. She has the vague thought she could head over to their weird house, but she doesn’t. She should call Marlene, but she knows Marlene is out with some of her girlfriends who didn’t have family come in for the holiday and Leslie really isn’t up for twenty questions of how she ended up pregnant from Marlene’s feminist brigade of friends. Instead, she goes to Ben’s empty apartment.  
  
Shady Hills off Third wasn’t Leslie’s first pick for Ben. It wasn’t her second or third. In fact, she’s not sure she ever approved of it. But it is cheap and relatively safe so it was enough for Ben. The modest two bedroom apartment has good windows and a patch of grass behind it. It’s on the second floor and when Leslie opens the door she realizes Ben never turned off the air conditioning because it’s running despite the fact that it’s November. She leaves her coat on, switches it to heat, and turns on every light in the apartment.  
  
And when the place floods with light, Leslie hugs her stomach. She drops her purse next to the door and walks slowly through the apartment. She touches the counter, remembers him turning her suddenly and lifting her onto it, and her hand lingers over the cabinet doors. She moves to the other side of the kitchen and looks inside the trashcan. It is empty, but there is a wine bottle in the recycling bin. The wine bottle she opened that night and never drank. She can almost see him pouring it down the sink the next morning. From the kitchen she walks through the living room but there really isn’t anything there. Just a couch and television still sitting in the box. She looks in the empty second bedroom. He talked about setting it up as part office and part guest room for Jenny. She shuts off the door and moves to the next one.  
  
His bedroom.  
  
She swallows and pushes the door open.  
  
There are long shadows across the bed and it’s not made. She crosses and touches the sheets. He never made the bed. She hurries to the closet and pushes it open. She knows he has three suits and they all hang there as do most of his plaids and work pants. She sees his brown dress shoes and running shoes. There isn’t much missing. She goes to the dresser and pulls each drawer open. She stands back and turns around the room slowly. Something is not right. He barely took anything. She didn’t see a few t-shirts she knew he loved, but really that is all that is missing. She went into the bathroom and opened the vanity drawers. He didn’t take his electric razor or the glasses he just got a few weeks before he left. He had just started wearing them when they worked. He needed them to read. Why wouldn’t he have taken them?  
  
Leslie comes out of the bathroom, goes through the bedroom, and back into the kitchen. She looks in the fridge and has to stand back in revolt. There are rotting vegetables and fruit, meats and cheeses in there. The bread has become something green and lumpy and when she picks up the milk and shakes it something solid lumps against the plastic side. She closes the fridge and goes to the hallway closet. Again she has to stand back and hold her breath. In the closet is the valet trash bin and in it is rotting garbage. His stupid khaki windbreaker hangs above it. At least she has an excuse to get rid of it, she muses. She shuts the door. She’ll have to get to all of that later.  
  
She wanders back into his bedroom and this time she sees the shirt. Her shirt.  
  
He pulled it up over her head that night and with the flick of his wrist sent it flying. She thinks it landed in his sink, but she doesn’t really remember. When she fled, she’d left it behind. Had grabbed a white undershirt of his instead.  
  
But her shirt, a red blouse she always felt confidant in, lay folded on his bed. He folded her god damn shirt.  
  
She sinks down next to it on the bed and wills herself not to cry. She is so tired of crying.  
  
And so she doesn’t. She lays back and breaths deep. The sheets smell like him. Something like Old Spice and pencils. She pulls the sheet up over her nose and inhales, shifts to her side and brings her feet up so she is curled up in the fetal position.  
  
He folded her shirt.  
  
On his way out the door he didn’t bother to bring his glasses or take out the trash, but he folded her shirt.  
  
She makes two tiny fists and sighs.  
  
She doesn’t want to do this alone.  
  
***  
  
When someone decides to write the auto-biography of Leslie Knope, they will gloss over these next months of her life. They will say she struck out with her career and impending motherhood on her own, bravely, like the ideal modern woman. They'll paint the portrait of her working late into the evenings and readying her home for a child, continuing despite everything. Leslie muses there will be comparisons to the wives of the founding fathers, those founding mothers who kept their farms and families alive when left alone, and she decides that will be total and complete crap.  
  
She does work late evenings, but that is to keep from going home to a suddenly very empty house. And she doesn't paint the nursery. Chris won't let her. He says the fumes can hurt the baby.  
  
When she tells the Parks department, over dinner one night, everyone is very quiet except Andy, who exclaims, “Awesomesauce Leslie. When is Ben coming home?”  
  
She hadn’t even said Ben was the father. Ron, bless him, turns to Andy and says, “Son, why don’t you put some food in that mouth…”  
  
But Leslie puts a hand on his shoulder and says a calmly as she can that, yes, Ben is the father, but no Ben is not coming back.  
  
She lets everyone fill in the blanks and she knows the assumptions they are making: that Ben knows about the baby and has chosen to stay away. She lets them think that because it’s easier and at night she tells herself she will give Jenny Wyatt a few more weeks and then she’ll go to Rochester and tell him herself.  
  
But she never does.  
  
Frankly, she’s busy. Her job is hard. In a good way because it distracts her, but after too many evenings pouring over documents and sending emails she has to admit to herself that she doesn’t like it.  
  
It’s the numbers. She never liked the numbers.  
  
There are parts she does like like working with the departments to come up with ideas that are fiscally feasible but govern at the same time. She doesn’t even mind following Chris and smoothing the feathers he ruffles, saying no to promises and making real workable plans. She likes solving problems and realizes after a while that Chris isn’t that different than Ron. They both don’t really work; they rely on the person behind them to actually handle the people for whom they work. Albeit, their avoidance is for very different reasons, but Leslie quickly figures out there is little practical difference. You work your butt off and you’ll be appreciated it.  
  
And appreciated she is. Chris adores Leslie; he doesn’t steal her thunder and that endears Chris to her even more. He gives her credit when credit is due and points her out to every bigwig they pass, “Have you met the best assistant city manager in the world, Leslie Knope? Come meet her, you’ll love her…”  
  
Sill, Leslie doesn’t love the job.  
  
She realizes it one day before Christmas. It is a good job. She knows she is learning, gaining real valuable insight into how government really needs to function.  
  
But she doesn’t want to stay here. She doesn’t even want to be city manager.  
  
She wants to run for office.  
  
She admits it to herself one day while sitting at her desk pouring over documents. She feels cut off from people, real people. She knows her work is for them, but there are like six degrees of separation between her and them. She doesn’t like it. So, she decides, in two years she is going to run for office. She’s not sure what, probably city council. The baby will be a toddler and it won’t be easy, but she is going to do it. And she has two years to gain valuable experience as  
assistant city manager. She begins to dream up big ideas, good ones, and take them to Chris. He approves some and not others. He asks her why she is working so hard and she tells him, after a bit of trepidation, that she wants to run for office. He is delighted and sets her up to have lunch with Kathy Ballard, a friend of his and member of the state senate. She is in her mid forties, a democrat, and mother of two young boys. Leslie drives to Indianapolis once a month to meet with her and in her finds a mentor of sorts to the world outside Pawnee.  
  
They never officially replace Leslie in the Parks Department. Ron keeps putting off interviews because he doesn’t want to talk to people. Leslie offers to do the interviews herself and somehow that turns into her half-doing her old job while also her new one. It’s a solution that works for everyone but Ann.  
  
“You’re going to have a baby in a few months. You can’t keep working sixteen hours a day!” She says one night over dinner. She turns to Chris for support, but he stays silent. If Leslie works less he won’t have as much time to run.  
  
“But Ann, I want to. No one is making me.”  
  
“A baby will make you,” she is practically yelling at this point, “have you thought about childcare? You know you can’t just bring the baby to work with you…”  
  
To be honest, Leslie had kind of thought she would. But Ann gives her books to read and Leslie starts to realize how big of a deal this is going to be. Not that she thought it was going to be easy, but maybe she underestimated what it meant to have a child, especially to have one alone.  
  
The thing is she doesn’t feel alone. After that dinner with the Parks department, they never ask about Ben. They step up. Ron builds the baby a crib and her a rocker. Tom takes her clothes shopping for the baby and Andy enrolls in a babysitting class with a bunch of thirteen year-old girls who get a crush on him because he’s in a band. Jerry paints a mural ( _using VOC-free paint, as per Chris’ requirement_ ) in the nursery. He was going to do a family of turtles but Leslie  
puts the kibosh on that. Turtles are condescending. Donna gets the baby an electronic Mercedes Benz which Ann points out won’t be usable for several years and they almost come to blows, but Leslie is thankful anyways. And April, who is the least enthusiastic, who refers to it as an alien and Leslie as the knocked up one, April gives Leslie maybe the best gift of all: nothing. She doesn’t treat Leslie any differently because she is pregnant. She does buy ironic onsies and talks  
of taking the baby on tour with Andy’s band someday just to get a rise out of Leslie, to see if Leslie turns into one of those lame moms, but Leslie doesn’t rise to the bait and suggests the baby could be the band mascot.  
  
For Christmas, they all forgo visits to far off family and gather for the day at Leslie’s house. Ron builds a pit in her back yard and roasts some sort of wild bird. Chris reads the Christmas Carol to Andy and Tom. Jerry comes over after Christmas morning with his daughters ( _who just texted the day away with their boyfriends_ ) and apologizes for Gail not joining them. Her bunions are acting up. Donna teaches Ann how to cook soul food, and Leslie sits back and watches.  
Chris shows Marlene how to do Dance, Dance Revolution and everyone gathers in the living room to take cheer her on. There is laughter and shouting, and Leslie runs a hand over her growing belly, and says to her child, “Sweetheart, this is your second lesson. This is called family.”  
  
***  
  
Ann, on the other hand, is the practical one. She tethers Leslie to reality. She goes with her to lamaze classes. And after the first one, when everyone assumes they are lesbian lovers, Ann let’s Leslie cry ( _not because she’s agains lesbians, but because she should be doing this with Ben_ ) on her couch and the next time sends Chris with her.  She makes sure Leslie takes her prenatal vitamins and prints out every article the internet has ever seen on child rearing. She visits possible day care facilities with Leslie and regulates ( _much to Leslie’s chagrin_ ) Leslie’s caffeine intake. Leslie takes it all in. Is thankful even.  
  
But then Ann makes her clean out her house and Leslie hits a wall.  
  
“How many birdhouses do you need?” Ann comes out of Leslie’s spare room. The baby’s nursery has been cleared out and Leslie has been tasked with organizing her linen closet. Leslie didn’t even know she had a linen closet.  
  
Ann is holding five bird houses and Leslie licks her lips.  
  
“I like birds.”  
  
Ann wrinkles her nose, “No you don’t. You’re afraid of them.”  
  
“That’s bees, Ann.”  
  
“Well, you don’t have room for five bird houses,” Ann decides and throws them into the donate pile.  
  
“Why can’t I keep them? They aren’t in the baby’s way.” Leslie crosses and picks up one of the bird houses, one constructed of popsicle sticks that she made in a Rec class the summer she started with the Parks department. She holds up to her chest like a shield.  
  
“It’s important to get your home ready for a child, Leslie, and that means cleaning it out. It means giving things up because you’re going to have a child.”  
  
“Why? The baby has a nursery. What more does it need?” Leslie looks around at the editions of the Pawnee Journal piled in the hallway. Ann said she had to get rid of them so there is room in the closet for linens. Apparently, a baby needs linens.  
  
Ann approaches her, “You do get that this is a teeny tiny human being who is going to rely on you for everything. You will be it’s whole world and it will be dependent on you for everything. Everything.”  
  
“And what does that have to do with birdhouses?”  
  
Ann closes her eyes briefly, “The bird houses are just part of it. You need to get your life in order, Leslie.”  
  
Leslie steps back. Unconsciously her arms come up around her baby bump, “My life is in order.”  
  
Ann sighs, “No, it’s not. You work too much and you don’t own a stroller yet. You’re six months pregnant and you don’t know who is going to watch your child after its born.”  
  
“I”m going to watch my child!”  
  
“Oh, the baby is going to come with you City Council meetings?” Ann scoffs.  
  
“I will figure it out. I have time.”  
  
Ann locks her jaw, “When are you going to tell Ben?” Leslie stills,“I know you haven’t told him. I know you never talked to him when you went to Partridge. What happened?”  
  
Leslie looks away, “It’s complicated.”    
  
“This is the father of your child. Think of your child.”  
  
“I am!”  
  
“I don’t think you are,” Ann accuses, “I think it hurts too much and you don’t want to do it. But you don’t have that luxury. There is a baby involved now.”  
  
“And it’s not yours so back off, okay?” This stops Ann dead in her tracks. She stills and immediately Leslie knows she treaded too far, “I”m sorry. I didn’t mean  
that.”  
  
Ann crosses her arms, “No, you did. Maybe Chris and I are too involved. Maybe we should just let you do this on your own.”  
  
“Ann, come on.”  
  
But Ann is already headed downstairs, “No, seriously. Call us when the baby comes. We’ll bring by a casserole.”  
  
“Ann, stop!” Leslie catches her at the bottom of the stairs, “Ann?”  
  
She touches her friend’s shoulder and turns her. Ann is crying. She fists her hands and wipes her eyes. She looks up to the ceiling and laughs a short, caustic laugh, “I promised Chris I wouldn’t do this.”  
  
“Do what?”  
  
“This…take over. He warned me not to…what did he call it? Displacement something. He read it in some psychology magazine.”  
  
“Displace what?” Leslie is very confused.  
  
“We’re trying to have a baby,” Ann says, wipes her nose with the back of her hand, “since September and it hasn’t happened yet. I mean, god, you were closed up like Fort Knox and you still got pregnant. I’m like Ellis Island, open for visitors, and it hasn’t happened. And Chris has me on all sorts of fertility supplements and it’s messing with my hormones and turning me into a crazy person. He warned me not to displace my anxiety onto you because I’m so happy for you. I’m not jealous or resentful. I just want you to be happy and the baby to be healthy.” She’s crying again and all Leslie has to do is open her arms and Ann steps into them.  
  
“I’m scared,” Leslie says into Ann’s shoulder. Her friend steps back.  
  
“What do you mean, you’re scared?”  
  
“I mean I’m scared that I’m going to screw this kid up. I know there is a right way to do this, but I kind of figure the right way went out the window when I failed on the whole daddy thing so I’m kind of winging it. I know I need to tell Ben and I will when I think it’s right, but he’s got a life…and there is another woman in it and I don’t want to ruin it for him,” Leslie says in a long breath. She sinks down onto the stairs and Ann follows and she tells Ann about what happened in Partridge and the note she left with Jenny Wyatt.  
  
“And you haven’t heard anything?” Ann says in disbelief.  
  
“Nothing.” Leslie says and then she tells Ann about the apartment and how Ben left his whole life there. She exhales, “I think he might be coming back,” she holds up her hands, “If anything just to get his stuff. He left some things I know he wouldn’t want to loose - his baseball card collection, a model light saber, and his passport . So when he comes back, I’ll tell him.”  
  
“And what if he doesn’t come back before the baby is born?”  
  
Leslie shrugs, “Then I’ll have to make some introductions.”  
  
Ann is quiet for a long time and then she says, “Chris already bought our baby his or her first pair of toe shoes. You know those things he runs in? That look like gloves for your feet. He bought itty-bitty baby ones even though there is no baby yet.”  
  
“That’s sweet.”  
  
Ann knocks Leslie with her shoulder, “I’m just saying, if Chris is this excited about a fictional baby, can you imagine how Ben would be about a real baby?”  
  
Leslie nods. Every night she falls asleep imagining how great of a father Ben would be. Sometimes she gives in and imagines them as a family, but most of the time it’s just him and the baby in her mind. And in the morning her heart hurts.  
  
Ann pulls herself up and turns to give Leslie a hand up, “But it doesn’t matter what I think. This is your baby and you’re going to make the right decisions. I know it.”  
  
Leslie smiles, “Thank you,” she pauses and then asks, “What do you think if I had the Parks department watch the baby at work?”  
  
“Who do you think would be less responsible: Ron, Tom, or Andy?”  
  
“You’ve got a point…”  
  
***  
  
In March, Leslie feels like the Hindenburg. It doesn’t help that every time she’s near Tom he makes exploding sounds. She threatens to kiss him and he shuts up. That doesn’t stop Leslie from feeling huge. She is eight months pregnant, still putting in long days at work, and getting ready for this baby. After her fight with Ann, Leslie sobers up and realizes she did need to get her metaphoric and literal house in order. She and Ann are ruthless in their purging. While she does keep single copy of every edition of the Pawnee journal, she throws out the nine extras for each day she’d kept just-in-case. Over time from her house emerges a real guest room ( _which Ann insists she’ll need, but Leslie seriously doubts_ ) and room in her bedroom for a bassinet. Ron helps her update her kitchen and Marlene, as a gift to the baby, buys new appliances. Chris designs an exercise program for Leslie to do post-baby to help her loose the weight she’s gained and Jerry’s daughters offer, for a fee, to babysit when Leslie needs help.  Slowly, her life is coming together.  
  
Leslie continues to drive to Indianapolis to meet with Kathy Ballard and agrees to help over the summer with a state wide civic education camp. Chris orders Ron to hire someone to take Leslie’s place and assigns their shared assistant to force Leslie out of City Hall at five o’clock. He taps Tom to represent City Hall at minor functions, gatherings at community centers and school assemblies, that Leslie would normally have gone too. This thrills Tom, who loves an audience, and gives Leslie more time to do the real work that makes Pawnee run. In early March, one of Leslie’s ideas from the winter, the renovation of the observatory, starts and she goes to the site daily to check on the progress.  
  
This is how she ends up finding the butcher paper.  
  
She is on her way to the site and forgets her coat at the office. She stops at a light on Third and Main and her eyes glance up the street. She can see Ben’s apartment building down the street. She debates for a moment, but then gets in the turn lane and heads toward Shady Hills. This isn’t her first visit to Ben’s apartment since Thanksgiving. She stops by once a week to drop off the mail that is in his box ( _Regina gave her a key which Leslie is pretty sure is illegal_ ) and  
to water the plants she bought for his place. She doesn’t know why she bought them other than the fact that the place had no life in it and it depressed her. Maybe it is to give herself a reason to go over there, but she doesn’t really care either way.  
  
She also cleans out his refrigerator and takes out his trash. She feels guilty and gets that stupid windbreak dry cleaned. She buys an antenna and sets up his television and one slow weekend she brings groceries over, makes dinner, and sits on his couch and watches sports. She tells the baby about Ben and she feels like sitting in his apartment, even if he only lived here briefly, is like having him around. The baby kicks more when she is there and she decides it’s because they’re there, in his apartment, as close to him as she can be.  
  
And so she knows that in the back of his closet is a sweatshirt. She is sure she has seen it before and she is right. She slides back the closet doors and rummages around until she finds an oversized one from college. She holds it up and is pretty sure it’ll stretch over her belly. And then the butcher paper catches her eye.  
  
There are four of them, rolled and clipped with paper clips to stay shut. At first she thinks it is wrapping paper and wonders why Ben would buy wrapping paper, but when she pulls them out and opens the first one she realizes it is the list they made that first night in his hotel room. She recognizes her own scrawl. She frowns and opens the second one. He’d continued their work onto a second piece; she’d added to it. Her heart turns over when she realizes that he kept  
them, like a talisman of them.  
  
She sinks down onto the bed and opens the third. This one is very different. This is all Ben and it has nothing to do with work. It is all about her. She swallows and quickly spreads the paper out on the bed, opens the last one next to it, and anchors them with some shoes. She stands back and looks at them, a hand at her throat.  
  
It is her in Ben’s hand. His scrawl, but her words. Things she said. Books she recommended. Jokes she’d made. He’d written them down, didn’t want to forget them. The baby kicks, hard, and Leslie smiles.  
  
“I know,” she gasps, “I know.”  
  
And then she sees the list in the middle of the fourth one. It is two lists really. There is a line drawn down the middle.  
  
 **Put down roots:**  Rented apartment.  
 **Make friends:** Tom, Andy & April, maybe Ron (??)  
 **Let people in:**  Told Ron about Icetown over a beer.  
  
 **Surprise Leslie:**  Scavenger Hunt  
 **Make her laugh:**  Staking out maze for Harvest Festival  
 **Render her speechless:**  Lot 48 Funding  
 **Tell her about Jenny:**  Done  
 **Help her succeed at something:** Harvest Festival  
 **Tell her how I feel:**  
  
And next to every item is a check mark except for one. The last one.  
  
And finally the dam breaks, the walls come down, and Leslie comes undone. She hasn’t allowed herself to cry since she found out she is pregnant. She has steadied herself, forced herself to stay strong. It is wrong to cry; she is going to have a baby. She does not want to be sad when her life is so full, but she looks down at the the paper and she lets out a searching breath, one that cannot get enough oxygen because she feels like she is drowning. The baby is kicking against her stomach now and Leslie presses her hands against her own skin stretch taunt and tight.  
  
“I’m sorry,” she says to her baby and to him, “I’m sorry. I’m so, so, so sorry. I didn’t know. I mean I did, but I didn’t really know and I was scared and I wish I could do it all over again. I’m sorry.”  
  
The tears come and she is lost inside of them. It is a mourning, a grief, that she has kept at bay for months. This is different than wanting Ben to come back. This wanting isn’t for herself. She wants so badly to fix it for them. She wants the hurt to never have happened, to turn back the clock, and to erase time itself. And she can’t and it breaks her heart to know that. Something inside her shatters.  
  
She wants to protect them.  
  
She would give anything for them to be happy.  
  
Her own comfort and dreams and ambitions and happiness itself if it means they are happy and safe.  
  
And she realizes that it would be impossible to choose between career, family, and love. She realizes that she’s been missing the central element in her life: the people. The people in her life, be it co-workers or friends or family, would always be her first choice. If she could have the career and still have the people, then she’d have the career and they would cheer her on the entire way. She already had love because she had these beautiful, wonderful people to fill up her days. And she could have a family, could raise this baby, because of the people around her. It always came down to them and maybe her family was unconventional (and more than a little crazy), but they were people. Her tribe. Her life.  
  
And for the first time Leslie really gets it, what it means to be a woman.    
  
***  
  
Of course, once Leslie finally feels like her life is almost perfect, that she has found a peace of sorts, something happens to tip it upside down again.  
  
Because nothing could never just be straight forward.  
  
Ann throws Leslie a baby shower and Leslie decides it should be a joint baby shower and bachelorette party. They get two cakes - one in shape of a pair of breasts and the other in the shape of a penis. Everyone brings toys: baby toys for Leslie and sex toys for Ann. They open gifts and take turns showing off baby clothes and lingerie. April gets both of them bonnets - one for the baby and one for Chris.  
  
“Role play,” she shrugs, “Andy likes it.” And she tips back the pixie stick she just opened.  
  
Leslie has to remind Marlene to close her mouth.  
  
They have a karaoke party. Every song has to have the word baby or sex in the title and Leslie and Ann are in the throes of a killer rendition of Sexual Healing when the doorbell rings.  
  
Leslie answers the door mid sentence, laughing and looking over her shoulder at the crowd of women in her living room. It gives the person at the door a second to see her, see her state, and react. By the time she turns back to see who it is, they have already composed their face, hidden any shock, and thrust out  
their hand.  
  
"Hi, I'm Jenny Wyatt."  
  
***  
  
Jenny Wyatt is sitting in her living room.  
  
And this is not the Jenny Wyatt she saw in Partridge.  
  
This Jenny is tall - 5’9 at least - with long blond hair and luminous brown eyes. She is thin, perhaps too thin, but she doesn’t look anything like Ben. She is tan and lithe and beautiful. She is wearing a tailored suit, high heels, and a french manicure. She is nothing like Leslie pictured her - cancer ridden and bed stricken. No, she looks alive and intimidating. And she is sitting in Leslie’s living room surrounded by lingerie and a penis cake.  
  
It’s official, Leslie has never been so mortified in her life.  
  
“Here,” Ann shoves a tray into Leslie’s hands, “take this.”  
  
They are standing in her kitchen. Ann shooed the rest of their friends away while Leslie escorted Jenny Wyatt in, invited her to sit down, and then ran to hide in her kitchen.  
  
“Ann, you do it.” Leslie whines.  
  
“No,” Ann hisses, “this is your mess. It’s time to face it.” She shoves Leslie forward, toward the door, “and I’ll be in the kitchen listening to every word.”  
  
“Traitor,” Leslie murmurers and squares herself to the door.  
  
Jenny sits ramrod straight on her couch, hands folded in her lap. Leslie dips down and places the tray of tea on her coffee table. She sinks into a nearby armchair and something squeaks. She digs underneath her and comes up with a toy. She couldn’t tell you if it is a baby toy or sex toy, but it gets tossed over her shoulder, “So what brings you to Pawnee?” she says brightly.  
   
“This,” Jenny says and drops a worn envelope onto the coffee table. It is her envelope. Leslie recognizes her hand writing.  
  
“Oh,” she says in surprise, “you got it.”  
  
Jenny sits back a little, “Of course I got it.”  
  
“But it’s been so long,” Leslie says, “I mean it was five months ago. I don’t mean to criticize, but why now? I’m sorry that’s rude. You came all this way and I should let you just talk because that’s obviously why you’re here. That is why you’re here right? This isn’t one of those candid camera things is it cause that happened to me once on a date, but you don’t need to know that.”    
  
Jenny’s mouth twitches, “Ben said you were quirky, different.”  
  
Leslie looks at her front door, “Is Ben here?”  
  
“No he’s not,” Jenny levels her gaze, “I’m sorry, but I have to ask. Are you carrying my brother’s baby?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
The shock is evident on Jenny’s face. Leslie doesn’t know what to do or to say so she stays very still. Jenny closes her eye and lifts a hand to her temple. Leslie isn’t sure what is happening but she steels herself for disappointment. She’s always imagined Jenny as warm and effusive, a little cooler than Ben perhaps, but like him in genuine kindness. Whatever comes next, Leslie decides, she is not going to apologize for herself or for her child.  
  
Jenny lifts a finger, “Is that what you meant by the note - the important thing you had to tell him?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Jenny turns her head away, “Shit,” she stands and paces, “shit, shit, shit.”  
  
Leslie frowns, “I’m sorry. What is so terrible?”  
  
Jenny whirls on her, “He’s going to kill me. He’s going to murder me for keeping it from him, for telling him to go to California, and then coming here. Damn it, he’s going to be so pissed,” she cocks a hip and then her eyes land on Leslie, “Why haven’t you called him? Why didn’t you say something in your note?”  
  
“Because she’s a coward,” it’s Ann from behind the doorway. Jenny frowns and Leslie waves a hand hoping she’ll ignore it.  
  
“Because I didn’t want to interrupt his life,” she wrings her hands. Now, said aloud to his beautiful sister, it just sounds lame.  
  
“What life?”  
  
“With Trudy,” she cringes as she says it.  
  
Jenny’s brow wrinkles, “I’m Trudy.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“What?” The second one is from Ann. She comes out from the kitchen and stands next to Leslie, “You’re Trudy?”  
  
“Yes,” Jenny shakes her hair, “My full name is Gertrude Jennifer Wyatt. It’s what I went by as a kid. Unfortunately,” she smiles at them, as if asking them to roll their eyes with her, but they’re just staring and she gives up, “I’ve been Jenny since middle school. Where did you hear that name?”  
  
Leslie folds her hands and speaks without looking at anyone, “When I went to Partridge, the day before Thanksgiving, to find Ben and tell him about the baby, I saw a woman who I thought was you talking to a man about Ben driving up from Rochester with a woman named Trudy and how good he’d been to her.”  
  
“And you assumed he dropped his entire life, dropped you, to shack up with a woman named Trudy in Rochester, Minnesota?”  
  
All Leslie can do is shrug. Ann wraps an arm around her and says in a hushed tone, “It’s the hormones.”  
  
But Leslie breaks away, “No. No, I’m not the crazy one. He’s the one who ran off without a note or a phone call and disappeared for months. Who does that? Who just gives up their life without any explanation?”  
  
Jenny’s mouth makes a firm line, “A man whose big sister was dying.”  
  
Leslie makes a noise that is something like phhht and says, “You? You can’t be dying. You’re beautiful.”  
  
Then Jenny does something Leslie really would never have guessed was coming next. She takes off her hair.  
  
She takes off her freaking hair and lays it on the dining room table next to Ann’s half-eaten penis cake and Leslie’s untouched boob cake ( _no one really likes strawberry icing_ ).  
  
“Wow,” Ann says, “didn’t see that one coming.”  
  
“No, I didn’t either,” Leslie agrees.  
  
Jenny folds her hands, “I really am a blond, but the chemo kind of took all of it,” she rubs her hand ruefully over the peach fuzz, “But it’ll come back soft as damn duck down.”  
  
“Mayo Clinic is in Rochester,” Ann nods, finally putting it together.  
  
“Yup,” Jenny says, “I called Ben from the hospital the morning he left. I waited for the biopsy to come back, but I promised him years ago not to keep anything from him again, after that summer,” she turns her eyes to Leslie, “I didn’t want to. He was so happy here, with you. But I promised him.”  
  
“Of course,” Leslie says, “but why didn’t he just call?”  
  
“I think for a long time he wasn’t even in his right mind. I was really bad off. The tumors were in my lungs this time. There were a couple of surgeries and chemo and radiation and when that didn’t work I was on the transplant list and they didn’t want to give them to me cause of the cancer, but in the end I got ‘em,” she smiles, flushes at the happiness of those words, “I’m not trying to be melodramatic, but I was days away from dying and Ben was just…” she searches, “undone. We’re each other’s only family and he’s shouldered me,” she waves a hand as tears brim, “for so long that I don’t know if he knows how to ask for help.”  
  
Leslie shakes her head, “I should have known something was up. You didn’t bring your pots in…”  
  
“And my plants died. I know. I was so mad at Ben for forgetting those. He covered my garden beds and forgot the damn pots,” Jenny smiles.  
  
“But who was the woman you saw?” Ann asks.  
  
Jenny holds up a finger, “That would be our cousin and her husband. She found your note in the mailbox and gave it to me. And I read it, but I couldn’t tell him, not until I knew you really cared. I had to protect him. And right after Thanksgiving I went back into the hospital and then there was the transplant and the recovery. I just got out a few weeks ago. I took myself to the Caribbean because damn it I almost just died and I’d never seen the sunset over the ocean, but then I came straight here. To see if you loved him or if you…”  
  
“Were a heartless bitch that walked out on him?”  
  
“Yup,” Jenny flashes a smile and Leslie thinks she might be the most beautiful person she’d seen in real life, even more beautiful than Chris or Ann, “Hedoesn’t have the best track record with women.”  
  
“Karla?” Leslie tips up her eyebrows, “Oh, I know.”  
  
“You’ve met her?”  
  
“Not in person, but I called her looking for Ben. She’s, um, interesting.”  
  
Jenny scrunches up her nose, “I always thought she was kind of a hag, but whatever.”  
  
Ann knocks Leslie with an elbow and Leslie starts a little, “Um, Jenny do you want to sit down? Maybe take your shoes off and stay a while?”  
  
Jenny exhales, “Yes, that would be amazing, but only if I can get a piece of that cake. It looks delicious.”  
  
“Um, the penis one?” Ann offers.  
  
Jenny grins, “Yeah, just the tip.”  
  
Leslie bursts out laughing. This might work out after all.  
  
***  
  
“So Ben is in California?” Leslie sinks down into her couch and puts her feet up. She sits on another toy and it squeaks ( _Seriously?_ ).  
  
“Ben is in California,” Jenny sighs. She finishes the last bite of her cake, closes her eyes for a moment, and savors. When she opens them she shrugs, “It’s the little things after the past eight months,” she sits up on the other end of couch and leans an elbow on the arm, “He is in California visiting our half-sister. Meeting her is more like it. Her name is Becca and she’s seventeen and she’s a doll.”  
  
“Half-sister?” Ann says and before Leslie can say anything, Jenny launches into a shortened version of the Wyatt family troubles.  
  
“Our dad moved out there with Mary and Becca not too long after Ben went to college. I was in remission and Mom was stable then so he thought it would be good for Becca to get away from Partridge, away from the scandal of Icetown and the cancer eaten sister and the crazy ex-wife who lived around the corner,” Jenny says it all lightly, but Leslie knows it doesn’t feel that way deep down.  
  
“And your mother?”  
  
“Died not to long after Ben graduated college. I think he’d been at the state auditor’s office a few years. Technically it was pneumonia but really it was the depression. She laid down in her bed one day and just decided not to get up. I was away for a few weeks, visiting some girlfriends at school, and when I came home she had died, alone,” Jenny picks at her skirt. Ann gasps and Leslie watches Jenny very carefully, but Jenny smiles and shrugs, “Ben blames our dad, but  
it wasn’t his fault. Mom let fear and sadness eat her alive. He tried to get her help even after the divorce. There were hospitals and medication and therapists, but she didn’t want to be helped. She wanted the world to be perfect and safe and when it wasn’t she gave up to the sadness.”  
  
Leslie doesn’t say anything. She thinks Jenny got very good at putting on a brave face a long time ago, but she doesn’t begrudge her that.  Jenny definitely doesn’t have it together nearly as much as she acts, but then again who is Leslie to judge her? So she stays very quiet and listens.  
  
“Ben never wanted anything to do with Dad or Becca. Wouldn’t acknowledge her growing up. It’s probably the one truly selfish thing I’ve ever seen him do,” she says, “So when I thought I wasn’t going to make it I made him promise to go out there, no matter what, and at least meet her. He didn’t have to forgive Dad, but he had to at least have a relationship with our sister. She never did anything but exist. None of what happened was her fault.”  
  
“And he’s there now?” Leslie says.  
  
“Yeah,” Jenny nods, “and I don’t know what he’s going to do after that,” she looks at Leslie, “He talked about you all the time. When it got really bad, I’d ask him to tell me stories about Pawnee, and he did. Not just about you, but Tom and Ron and all these people he met here. It was like a magical fairyland where nothing could stay bad and if you believe enough it would work out in the end.”  
  
Leslie plays with her hands, “Does he hate me?”  
  
Jenny shakes her head, “No, but you hurt him Badly. Even months later he still couldn’t figure out why out just left that morning and why you never called.” Leslie closes her eyes and sighs, but Jenny shakes her arm, “Listen, I wish I could tell you what you want to hear, but I really can’t. But I do have a confession to make…,” she looks from Ann to Leslie, “so I’ve wanted to be your friend since about the second time Ben told me about you.”  
  
***  
  
Becoming friends with Jenny is easy.  
  
In fact it’s easier than befriending Ben.  
  
Jenny is vivacious and a little outrageous, but she is kind and makes Leslie laugh. Leslie invites her to stay in the spare room rather than slough off to the Pawnee Super Suites Motel and in the morning Jenny sleeps in so late Leslie almost checks on her to see if she’s not dead. But they sit outside in Leslie’s back yard and pull their shirts up so the sun shines on their stomachs and enjoy the early spring warmth.  
  
“Tell me about the baby,” Jenny says, her eyes closed against the sun and a small sigh of contentment escaping from her, “Tell me all about having a baby.”  
  
“There’s not much to tell. You feel too big and too small at the same time. Your feet are swollen and nothing fits and people treat you like you’re an invalid and you want to scream I’m fine but you know you’re not fine because you realize that you’re going to have a baby, a living, breathing human being and that scares you because you don’t think you can do it. You’re not going to be good enough to deserve this child, this miracle and so you feel small even when you feel huge.”  
  
Jenny opens an eye, “I get what he meant about the speeches.”  
  
“Speeches?”  
  
“He said you make these speeches that make people believe in something.”  
  
“He said that about me?” Leslie says quietly.  
  
“Yeah,” Jenny closes her eyes again and lifts them to the sun, “Now, let’s talk about names…”  
  
Leslie gives Jenny a tour of Pawnee, points out all the things she can think of that have anything to do with Ben, and invites all her friends over to her house meet Jenny. Tom hits on her, but it is Ron who makes the best impression. Afterward, she asks about him, but Leslie waves her off. He has a thing for compact brunettes named Tammy.  
  
Jenny comes with Leslie to the final fitting for Ann’s wedding dress and suggests Ann wear her hair down rather than up. She’ll look more like herself, and Ann is delighted by the idea. She has them over for dinner and Chris and Jenny launch into a long discussion on the role of nutrition in fighting cancer and Ann takes the opportunity to pull Leslie aside and whisper, “She’d make a great sister-in-law.”  
  
Leslie has to pretend like she hasn’t had the thought herself.  
  
While Jenny is great, she doesn’t make it easy for Leslie. Jenny is everything Leslie isn’t: tall, beautiful, and womanly… she doesn’t know how else to put it. Jenny is a real-life version of Martha Stewart. She cooks (she taught Ben how to cook) and gardens and sews and always looks perfect. She laughs easily and never says the wrong thing. People want to see her smile and Jenny is happy to entertain them with quips and stories, but Leslie knows there is something  
missing. There is something very sad about Jenny, something skimming just beneath the surface, that she keeps very, very private. And Leslie realizes that she misses Ben. She misses the ease with which he opens up to her, shares with her. With Ben, Leslie always knew she was getting all of him, present in that moment. Sometimes, Leslie thinks, Jenny is acting so everyone will love her.  
  
Jenny has been there a week when there is a knock on Leslie’s bedroom door sometime around midnight. Leslie puts down the biography of Eleanor Roosevelt and Jenny peaks around the door, “Can I come in?”  
  
“Of course,” Leslie lays the book aside.  
  
Jenny sinks down on the foot of the bed, “Can I ask you something?” she looks nervous.  
  
Leslie shifts. Her back is hurting and she is sure she is having Braxton Hicks because the baby isn’t due for three more weeks and she still doesn’t have a stroller, but she nods.  
  
Jenny toys with the blanket, “What does it feel like…to have a baby inside you?”  
  
It’s almost a child like question that Leslie doesn’t quite know how to answer it, “Um, it feels weird at first and then right. Why?”  
  
Jenny looks sad, “Cause I’m never going to be able to have a baby.”  
  
“I didn’t think I’d have one, not this way at least, alone.”  
  
“But you do,” her eyes brim with tears, “and you have this career and you’re so smart and you have all these friends. It makes me jealous a little bit, really.”  
  
Leslie frowns. Her back really is hurting and she shifts again, trying to get comfortable, “But you’re so…womanly,” she feels lame for using such a weird word.  
  
Jenny shakes her head, “But the makeup and the cooking and all that stuff doesn’t mean anything. I’ve spent too much time looking like a dying person to not dress up and the domestic stuff is cause most of my adult life has been spent at home trying not to get sick. My father and Ben pay most of my bills. I paint and teach piano, but I could never have a career cause I get sick too often. But you have it all…”  
  
Leslie laughs. She doesn’t mean too, but she can’t help it. Jenny looks at her like she’s gone mad and when Leslie catches her breath she tells her why she walked out on Ben that morning, about her fears, and about her realizations, “And I still have no idea what I’m doing.”  
  
“Well, that’s good to know,” Jenny says, “Cause I…Leslie, are you alright?”  
  
Leslie is sitting very still in her bed. She grips the sheets and groans as something sharp and hard is pushing, pushing down on her, and then she feels something wet between her legs and Jenny goes very, very white.  
  
“Please don’t tell me I peed the bed?” Leslie moans.  
  
“Leslie, give me your cell phone,” Jenny yells and grabs it from the nightstand. She is dialing and Leslie tried to look over her belly and the pillows propping her up, but Jenny grabs her shoulders, “Don’t move. Stay very, very still,” someone picks up on the other line, “I need an ambulance to 456 Storeybrooke Road. My sister-in-law is eight months pregnant and her water just broke and there is blood. Lot’s of it.”  
  
***  
  
Two thousand miles away, Ben unlocks his hotel room door.  
  
Well, that was a complete disaster. Becca had begged him to come over for dinner, to see their father and meet her mother, and he’d done it just to appease her. He was finding her as impossible to say no to as Jenny. He wonders vaguely if Jenny is back from the Caribbean yet, if she is tan and healthy looking again, and he thinks about calling her. He wonders about the time difference as he drops his keys on the table and sits down on the bed.  
  
The white duvet is a lot nicer than that polyester thing he had in Pawnee.  
  
The thought tricks him, sneaks its way in, and he tries to push it away. He glances at his watch. It’s the middle of the night there, but that doesn’t stop him from thinking of her, wondering what she is doing, if she is healthy and happy…  
  
He rubs both his hands over his face and groans. He’ll call Jenny. To hell with waking her up. She’s healthy as a horse now. This whole thing was her idea anyway.  
  
But just as he reaches for his cell phone it rings. He jumps a little, fumbles the phone, and then recovers it. When he looks at the caller id it takes a moment for him to believe who it is.  
  
Ann Perkins.  
  
He lets it ring one more time, contemplates not answering it, but curiosity gets the better of him and he brings the phone up to his ear, “Hello.”  
  
“Ben, it’s Ann. It’s Leslie. You need to come home.”


	8. Chapter 8

Ben blusters through the doors of Pawnee General. Ann hadn’t told him anything on the phone except that Leslie was in the hospital and he needed to get back here right away because she needed him. He’d spent the entire plane ride trying to wrap his mind around what that could mean. After so many months, when all she had to do was pick up the phone, how could she suddenly need him?  
  
Ann said third floor, surgery, and she and Chris would be in the waiting room.  
  
He gets onto the elevator and when the doors close there is music, bad music, and for the first time in hours Ben stands still long enough to think.  
  
He doesn’t know what he’s doing here just that he needs to come. He doesn’t want to think about how seeing her will make him feel or how just being in Pawnee makes him so angry and hurt and confused all over again. There’ll be time for that later. Right now he just wants to make sure she is okay.  
  
The elevator doors open and his moment evaporates.  
  
The waiting room is filled with the Parks department. Ann is pacing and Chris just stares at the ground. Ben doesn’t see Ron which he thinks is odd, but the rest of them are here. Andy is the first one to see Ben.  
  
“Dude, you came back! Leslie said you weren’t coming back,” he starts to stand up, but April pulls him back down.  
  
“Ben!” Ann stops her pacing.  
  
“Where is she?”  
  
“She’s in surgery right now,” Ann says and Ben spins, heads in a direction, any direction, but Ann grabs his arm and holds on like in a death grip. God, she is deceptively strong.  
  
“I just need to…” Ben says, “I just need to see that she’s okay.”  
  
“You can’t right now. They won’t be much longer and then she’ll be in recovery.”  
  
Ben runs a hand through his hair, “I just want to see her.” This time he says it slower as if it’ll make Ann understand. One word at a time. Why don’t they understand that once he sees her he’ll stop feeling like this, like his heart is going to leap from his chest and the sky is going to concave in and time itself is running out, “Please…”  
  
“Ben, you can’t.” It is Chris and he loosens Ann’s grip and replaces it with his own, one hand on each of Ben’s forearms, “come sit and let us explain.”  
  
“No,” Ben is backing away. If they won’t help him someone else will. A nurse or a doctor. He’ll find someone who will take him to her… He gets a couple steps down the hall, sees the rest of the Parks department rise and he waves them away.  
  
He turns his back to them and looks for anyone when Ann’s voice echoes against the walls, “She had a baby.”  
  
He turns around. Chris stands behind her with a look of trepidation, but Ann doesn’t look nervous. She is steadfast, meeting his eye and walking slowly toward him.    
  
“What?” he chokes out.  
  
Ann approaches, “She had a baby. A baby girl. Her water broke and there was blood. A lot of it. It’s called placental abruption. The placenta broke away from the uterus wall and by the time Leslie made it to the hospital she was almost unconscious. They performed an emergency c-section, opened her up, and they saw the baby was in distress. The umbilical cord was pinched. A cord prolapse. It cuts off oxygen and blood to the baby.”  
  
“And the baby?” Ben feels funny, like everything has stopped and it’s just him and Ann standing here.  
  
She closes her eyes, “There is a test that is performed in the first few minutes after a baby is born. It’s called an Apgar test and it helps the doctors know if there is brain damage. She went so long without oyxgen first from the abruption and then the cord prolapse. She didn’t cry, just kind of gave this small mewl, like a newborn kitten.”  
  
“Ann, please…”  
  
But Ann doesn’t cut to the chase. She just stands rooted in that spot, doesn’t tear up or smile, just stands there, “She got a 4 on her first test. That’s the lowest they can have and not have permanent brain damage. And she was so small. A month early,” and then she smiles, “but she’s a fighter like her mom and a few minutes later they retested her and she scored a 9. Even the healthiest babies don’t always score that high. She’s going to be fine. She’s strong and beautiful and a miracle.”  
  
And Ben can breathe again. He turns away for a moment and locks his jaw to keep from coming undone. He turns to Ann who is looking at Chris and smiling, and says, “The baby…she’s not alone, right? Her father is with her, right? Leslie wouldn’t want her to be alone.”  
  
“Ben, you’re the father.” It’s Chris who says it, softly, “You have a daughter.”  
  
“But…”  
  
Ann is shaking her head and crying a little, “You have a baby girl and she’s beautiful.”  
  
Ben nods. He doesn’t even know what else to do. He just nods and keeps on nodding.  
  
He absorbs the fact, keeps on absorbing it, and it does something to him. It’s like seeing Leslie for the fist time all over again: he stops thinking or rather he breathes deep for the first time in a long time. He hasn’t even seen her yet and he knows nothing will ever be the same. And then his mind trips over the word her. There is a she and she is his. Their child. The sheer improbability of her existence, that a few minutes ago he didn’t know she existed and now he does and the path of his life is changing, shifting, and unfurling in a new direction. It has a new meaning. He exists for a different reason than he did a few moments ago.  
  
He is still nodding and Ann is hugging him and Chris slapping his back. In the background he thinks he hears Andy cheering and Tom clapping. When he looks over his shoulder, even April is smiling, actually smiling, at him.  
  
“But what about Leslie?” he asks as Ann releases him.  
  
She exhales, “They closed her up and moved her to recovery; we thought she was fine, but then she started bleeding again. They went back in to see if they can stop it. If they can’t they’ll have to do a hysterectomy, but that’s worst case scenario,” She lays a palm on Ben’s shoulder, “It’s going to be fine.”  
  
He licks his lips, “When should she be out?”  
  
“Any minute…” Ann says.  
  
“And who is with my daughter?” The word feels funny and he can’t help but smile a little at the sound of it. His daughter, “Someone is with her, right?”  
  
“Jenny and Ron are with her. She’s in the nursery,” Ann says.  
  
“My Jenny?”  
  
“Your Jenny.”  
  
“My Jenny is here? In Pawnee?” Ben looks dazed.  
  
Ann nods, “It’s a long story,” she stops, “why don’t I let her tell you herself? Let’s go meet your daughter. Chris will come find us the moment we know about Leslie…”  
  
***  
  
The first time Ben Wyatt see his daughter she is being held by Ron Swanson and is receiving a lecture on the various forms of government.  
He stands behind a wall of glass and watches as Ann hands him a pair of scrubs. He can’t really see her; she’s just a bundle of blankets. But still, a stab of regret and jealously pulse through him. He should have been the arms that held her in her first few hours.  
  
“Ann,” he turns to her, “why?”  
  
Ann gets what he is asking: Why didn’t she call him? Why did she leave that morning? Why did she keep this from him? And a thousand other whys that he couldn’t even put to words right now. He doesn’t understand, not at all.  
  
Ann smiles sympathetically, “Does it matter right now?”  
  
Ben exhales and rubs the back of his neck, “Not today.”  
  
But tomorrow and the day after that…it would matter. But not right now. Not today.  
  
They don the scrubs (she’s considered premature since Leslie was only 35 weeks; Ben has no idea what this means when Ann says it) and enter the nursery. Jenny and Ron look up at the sound of the doors and Jenny’s eyes go wide, “You’re here.”  
  
“I called him on my way to the hospital,” Ann says.  
  
Ron stands up from the rocking chair he was sitting in. She is cradled in the crook of his arm and Ben can’t believe how small she is. And then Ron approaches and Ben sees her face for the first time.  
  
If dawn were breaking or he were to glimpse the ocean for the first time, he wouldn’t have been tempted to look away. She is beautiful. Her hair is dark and he can’t really see the color of her eyes, but her skin is pink and one tiny hand curls up as if she’s reaching toward him, as if she knows who is instinctively. Ben reaches out a finger and she grabs hold of it. She yawns and her mouth forms the tiniest O and Ben instantly thinks of Leslie, of that first conversation they had in the conference room after he blamed Pawnee’s financial problems on her and right before she yelled at him, and he is flooded with that feeling Leslie could always bring out in him, a mixture of hope and thankfulness. Something akin to joy and love mixed together.  
  
“Son, hold her. She’s yours,” Ron shifts and then she is in his arms and Ben looks to Ann for help.  
  
“Just support her neck and she’ll be fine.”  
  
Ben looks up to see Jenny crying and Ron nodding, but he looks back down at her, his daughter, and bends down to press the lightest butterfly kiss to her forehead. When he does he whispers to her so only she can hear, “I’ll never leave you again.”  
  
***  
  
When Leslie wakes up the sentence she tried to get out right before they took her into surgery, the words themselves, are jammed up in her throat and she coughs, spitting them out, “My…baby…”  
  
“Leslie, take a deep breath,” It’s Ann who stands over her and places a hand on either side of her, “Calm down. You’re baby is just fine.”  
  
“Where is she?” Leslie lays back against the pillow and closes her eyes, briefly. Everything is fuzzy and it’s like she’s waking up from a long sleep. The lower part of her abdomen is still numb and everything is very, very bright.  
  
Ann smiles, “Jenny and Ron are with her. She’s healthy and she’s going to want to eat soon so you need to catch your breath and slow down.”  
Leslie wraps her hand around Ann’s forearm, “Someone needs to call Ben. He needs to know. He’s got to know about her because she’s perfect and if something happens before he knows about her,” her voice catches, “I’ll never be able to…I need a phone.”  
  
“Leslie, you need to calm down,” Ann shushes, “You don’t need a phone.”  
  
“I do!”  
  
“No, you don’t,” and Ann steps back, away, and Leslie’s eyes follow and she sees him.  
  
He is leaning against the far wall, have covered by a shadow and his arms are crossed. He stares at her steadily with a look that she can’t read. It’s probing and waiting and she is so happy to see him that she doesn’t care right then if he hates her. At least he’s here.    
  
“Hi,” she says shyly, and Leslie has the most absurd thought. She wonders what she looks like, after two surgeries and months of carrying a baby. She wonders if there are circles under her eyes and if her face is puffy. She wonders if her hair looks limp or even greasy and she wishes, for a half a moment, that she didn’t care what he thought about her. She wishes he was like Tom or Ron or Andy, just another guy, but he’s not. He’s Ben and like it or not, she cares what he thinks of her.  
  
Ben tips his head sideways, unfolds his arms, and takes a few steps toward her.  
  
In the background, Leslie hears a door click and she knows Ann is stepping out, giving them their privacy. He stands ramrod straight and looks at her, just looks at her, for a long time. Leslie doesn’t blink; she doesn’t look away. She’s done enough of that to last her a lifetime. Finally, after what seems like hours, he steps alongside her bed. He lifts his hands and they hover and then finally drop onto the side rail of her bed. Leslie doesn’t reach for more and he doesn’t offer it.  
  
“Hi,” he says.  
  
And there are so many things she wants to say I’m sorry…Let me explain…Have you seen her?…She’s perfect…How are you?…I’m sorry.  
  
And the only words that she can muster is, “How was your flight?”  
  
His mouth twitched, “Got stuck to the woman who would not stop talking.”  
  
“I hate that.”  
  
“Kept going on an on about parks and budgets…” He says.  
  
“Doesn’t she realize no one else cares?” She laughs and thought he would too, but he doesn’t.  
  
He rocks a little on his toes, “Did you think I wouldn’t…care? That I wouldn’t want to know?”  
  
She shakes her head no. He turns his face away and cusses under his breath. His jaw works its way up and down. Up and down.  
  
“What’s her name?” he’s looking at her.  
  
Leslie wants to smile, wants to launch herself into everything she’s been waiting to tell him, dying to tell him for months. But she doesn’t. She lets him take the lead, follows his cue, and says, “Eleanor Ann after Eleanor Roosevelt and Ann Perkins, beautiful and strong women.”  
  
“Eleanor Ann,” he muses.  
  
“I didn’t have a nickname yet. I thought Ellie or Ella or Ella Ann or maybe just Eleanor. Keep it classic. I thought I’d meet her first,” she swallows, “I wanted to know who Eleanor Ann Wyatt is.”  
  
His eyebrows tip upward, “Wyatt?”  
  
“Of course,” she says, “I wanted her to have part of you too.”  
  
“Not very progressive of you,” he says, “What about a part of you?”  
  
Leslie says it without thinking, “She has a part of me. I’ve carried her all these months.”  
  
His adams apple protrudes and Leslie knows she’s danced into dangerous territory.  
  
Okay, he’s mad, she thinks.  
  
“She’s beautiful, Leslie,” he says and she knows it’s a lifeline for both of them. Both of them are trying to stay above water here, to keep from drowning one another out in accusations and feelings.  
  
And so she takes it. She takes the peace offering and says, “I was worried her head would be cone shaped, but it’s not. She has the most perfect round head.”  
  
***  
  
Ben lets the door to Leslie's room shut behind him.  
  
The nurse brought their baby to Leslie's room and he saw the way her face lit up, how her eyes drew away from his face and onto their child, something in his stomach turned over as Leslie took her in her arms. Part of him wanted to move closer. The nurse even encouraged him to stand nearer, but something kept him rooted at the foot of the bed. And when the nurse said it was time for Leslie to nurse, he escaped into the hall.  
  
Now he leans against the wall and tips his head back, closes his eyes. He's exhausted. It's mid-morning here, but dawn back in California. He'd hastily sent Becca an email from the airport, but he knew he was going to have to explain. She's going to think he left because of that disastrous dinner, where he and his father almost came to blows. A dinner she'd insisted on.  
  
But he wasn't sure how to put the situation into words: There's this girl and well she broke my heart and secretly kept a pregnancy from me and well her best friend called me because there were complications from the delivery and guess what, you're an aunt.  
  
Yeah, he doesn't think that's the way to go.  
  
"Ben?"  
  
It's Jenny and Ben looks at her for a long time without saying anything.  
  
"Come on," he says and walks down the hall toward the stairwell where they can be alone. She follows, nervous, and when the door shuts behind her he swings around and glares at her, "Explain."  
  
"She came to Partridge in November," Jenny says, "to tell you, but she overheard Vicki telling Greg about you and this girl name Trudy," she waits to see if he smiles because he's always hated that name, but he doesn't, "and she thought you'd found someone else, someone you were in love with, and she didn't want to crash your life if you were finally happy so she left me a note." She pulls it out of her purse and hands it to him.  
  
Ben reads it and rereads it. In it Leslie said she hurt him, badly, so she must have had some idea of what she was doing when she left that morning. It doesn't make him feel any better though. He hands it back to her.  
  
"So you didn't know about the baby?"  
  
She shakes her head, "Not until I came here."  
  
"Which was..."  
  
"After I dropped you off at the airport. I just put my car in long term parking and bought a ticket to Indianapolis. I've been staying with Leslie," she takes a breath, "and Ben, she's great. She's wonderful. You're right.."  
  
Ben holds up a hand, "Stop. Don't try to sell her to me."  
  
"But everything was one huge misunderstanding. If you just..." Jenny pleads, but the look on Ben's face stops her.  
  
"It's not that simple, Jen," he shoves his hands in his pockets.  
  
"Yes it is when you love someone," she is almost petulant and crosses her arms. His eyes flick up to her and her mouth drops open, "You're still in love with her. You have to be..."  
  
Ben turns away and doesn't answer the question. He's not sure how.  
  
***  
  
Apparently having a baby is kind of a big deal because it takes over Ben's life.  
  
This shouldn't be a surprise, but it is to him. Before Ella (that's what he calls her, Leslie calls her Eleanor, and everyone else goes with Ellie) …before her, the course of his life took a wide and curious path, but now he is tethered to her. He didn't want to be away from her, to miss any more moments.  
  
For the next week Ben doesn't leave the hospital.  
  
Since he didn’t pack a bag, Jenny buys him clothes and Ann brings him a charger for his laptop. Chris offers him a book for expectant fathers and Ben reads it when Leslie is asleep. Ben reads Chris' notes in the margins of things to tell Leslie and gains a new appreciation for his old partner. He sits by Leslie’s bed and watches her sleep, listens to the rhythm of her breathing, and tries not to think too hard about how much he likes being close to her again. He reads about pregnancy and marvels at how his baby girl was formed day by day over the past months, part by tiny part, into this perfect creature. He reads about what happens to a woman's body after she's given birth, about the swelling and hormone changes and wishes it wasn’t so hard on Leslie. One night he gets to the section on complications and his heart restricts, squeezes tight, as he understands how very close to death they both came.  
  
Leslie's recovery is hard for Ben to watch.  
  
In the second surgery they managed to stop the bleeding but it left her body worn thin. She is nauseous from the anesthesia and the skin around her incision is puffy and swollen. He can see the pain on her face, but she hates taking the pain medication because it makes her groggy. So she tries to keep the pain from showing. She smiles and talks with everyone who comes to see her. There is a steady stream of visitors. Obviously she's made new connections in the Pawnee political circuit since he's left. He always stays in the room, leans against the wall, as well wishers visit Leslie. They ask about the baby, but what they really want to know is when she'll back to work. Few people notice him and he's fine with that. He wishes she'd rest more, say no to people, but it's still Leslie. She still soldiers on. Everyday he watches her take tentative, painful steps first to the bathroom and later down the hall. Everyone helps her, holds her up, but not him. He follows behind, usually with Ella in his arms, but he doesn't touch Leslie and she never asks him too. But his eyes never leave her back. He is always just a few steps away.  
  
He knows she's having trouble breast feeding. He doesn't stay in the room when she does; Ann takes his place and with the other nurses they teach Leslie how to lay on her side so she doesn't put pressure on her abdomen. But Ella doesn't want to attach. She's underweight and doesn't have enough fat to keep herself warm. Ben sees her shake sometimes, trying to keep warm. And he sees Leslie's face when Ella cries and cries from hunger. It is a raw emotion of guilt and frustration. He always steps out of the room at that point, but he can hear Leslie's voice rise as Ella Ann doesn't eat and the nurses try to tell her what to do. More than once a nurse leaves the room muttering. He stands next to the door, now slightly ajar, and listens to Ann try to talk Leslie down, to convince her that this isn't her fault. She didn't do anything wrong, didn't work too long or push too hard, to make her baby come early. He listens and closes his eyes and fights the urge to go in there. Instead, he waits out in the hall like a stranger and when Ann ushers him back in Leslie won't look at him, keeps her head down as if ashamed.   
  
They don't talk.  
  
Instead, they move around Ella like two moons pulled into the same orbit. Sometimes one of them will comment on her blue eyes or on how much she's grown or just on how happy she makes them. And there might be a few sentences exchanged, but it is always awkward and they settle back into a silence. He doesn't have the words right now and Leslie is either too tired or too skittish to bring up the dozen or so conversations they need to have. And so time stands still. Ben is vaguely aware of night and day. He sleeps on the couch when Leslie is awake and sits next to her bed, almost touching her, when she is asleep.  
  
He watches her and tries to figure out what is next.  
  
***  
  
In the end, it is Ron who makes the decision for him.  
  
He finds Ben, who has escaped the room while the doctors take out Leslie's sutures. He suggests a drink in the cafeteria and Ben can't say he isn't thrilled when Ron pulls out a flask and adds whiskey to both of their sodas.  
  
"I think you should come work for me," he sits back, crosses his arms.   
  
Ben almost chokes on his drink, "Work for you? Doing what?"  
  
"Be my deputy director."  
  
"Take Leslie's old job?" Ben's lip twitch. Someone, Ben can't even remember who, had told him about Leslie's promotion to his old position and from the rounds of visitors it isn't hard to guess that she's damn good at it.  
  
Ron nods, “Leslie and Chris think I hired a woman name Rhonda, but I made her up so they would stop setting up interviews for me. I don’t like people.”  
  
“So you made up a fictional person…”  
  
“And Leslie continued to do her old job anyway. Every time they come by to meet her I tell them she’s in the bathroom,” Ron says, “she has frequent urination syndrome.”  
  
“Is that a real thing?”  
  
“Does that matter?”  
  
Ben groans a little, “I don’t know Ron.”  
  
“What else are you going to do? Go back to being a state auditor?”  
  
Ben has to admit he doesn’t have a plan. He can’t hit the road again; his life is in Pawnee now. There is what is left of his savings, he could live off it for a while, but he doesn’t want to. He’d been doing that too long already and he has no idea what kind of costs come with Ella. That is one of those dozen conversations he needs to have with Leslie. Ben doesn’t want to split time with Ella; he doesn’t want to be apart from her. But he can’t just move into the spare room, right?  
  
Ron leans forward, “Give me six months. It’ll give you time to figure yourself out and it’ll be six more months before I have to talk to people again,” he shudders.  
  
Ben looks at him, “Okay. Six months.”  
  
“Good,” Ron stands and is almost gone when he turns, comes up behind Ben, bends down and says slowly, almost lazily, “Because if six months from now you haven’t gotten your jackassery figured out and her heart is still broken, I won’t feel any compunction about hunting you down like a feral pig.”  
  
***  
  
“Leslie, why did you pack a blazer in your hospital bag?” Ann holds up Leslie’s favorite blazer, a navy one with tiny pinstripes.  
  
“In case I needed to have any meetings Ann,” Leslie rolls her eyes, “I’m still a professional woman even if I am a mom.” She smiles at the word mom.  
  
“Hand me your journal and I’ll put it in your suitcase,” Ann points to the notebook in Leslie’s lap.  
  
Leslie is going home today. She’s been in the hospital eight days and Leslie never thought she’d say this but she doesn’t want to leave. The truth is that she’s terrified of going home. At home there isn’t a 24 hour nurse to help her and while her friends have already signed up for shifts, it’s not the same. What if Eleanor stops breathing? What if Leslie can’t get her to eat, even though she’s gotten better? What if she drops her or forgets how to put on a diaper? What if…  
  
But Ann is reaching for her notebook and Leslie snaps out of it. She jumps for it and they play tug-of-war until Ann (who is deceptively strong) wrestles it away from her. It opens somewhere in the middle and Ann glances down at the entries, “Leslie what is this?”  
  
“My journal and it’s private…” Leslie tries to grab it, but Ann holds it out of reach.  
  
“Why is it addressed to Ben?”  
  
“Ben’s my…” she stammers, “my imaginary friend. It’s just a coincidence.”  
  
“Dear Ben, Merry Christmas. I don’t know where you are, but I hope it is snowing there. I can’t imagine a Christmas without snow. But then again I never imagined this Christmas without you…Dear Ben, Today I thought of you when JJ’s got my order wrong though for me I think it was by accident and not on purpose…Dear Ben, You came back. There are some many things I want to say to you in person, but the words get caught up in my throat. You stare and stare and stare at me and it’s unnerving. It scares me and gives me butterflies at the same time. I know it is ridiculous. I’m a mother now. I shouldn’t get butterflies when a man looks at me, but it’s you and you’ve always given me butterflies…Leslie what is this?” Ann looks up at her.  
  
Leslie picks at the blanket across her knees, “It’s a journal I started when he left, like he was at camp and I was writing him letters.”  
  
“No,” Ann flips to the latest entries, “what is this? Why are you writing things that you should be telling him?”  
  
She looks up with sad eyes, dogged ones tired from turning the fact over in her own mind, “He doesn’t want to talk to me. He hates me.”  
  
Ann lifts a hip onto the bed, “He doesn’t hate you.”  
  
“Close to it. He barely says two words to me. He won’t get within two feet of me. It’s like I repulse him.”  
  
Ann considers for a moment and reaches for Leslie’s hand, wraps her fingers around Leslie’s, “When you sleep he sits right next to your bed. He reads and watches you. I’ve caught him a few times. He says it’s because the light is better, but it’s because he wants to be close to you. He just doesn’t know how.”  
  
Leslie wants to tell her heart from doing the flip flops it’s doing now, to settle down because it means nothing, “Then why won’t he talk to me?”  
  
“Maybe he’s afraid…”  
  
“Of what?”  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
***  
  
Ben knows his sister. When Jenny wants to say something she doesn’t come right out and say it. She waits for you to ask her, to give her permission to lay forth her judgement, and when you say What the hell… she can say smartly, “You asked!”  
  
So he doesn’t ask.  
  
He doesn’t ask when they pull into Leslie’s driveway the day she’s released from the hospital.  
  
He doesn’t ask when she makes up Leslie’s couch for him.  
  
He doesn’t ask when Leslie goes to lay down or when they make dinner together or when they give Ella her first sponge bath. He doesn’t even ask when Jenny says she’s going home that weekend. He waits until the morning he takes her to the airport. He parks the car and carries her luggage because it’s Jenny and she always overpacks and well, she’s his sister. He waits until she turns to hug him goodbye at the security gate. She stands there in her ridiculous high heels, with a short brown-haired wig that makes her look like Lois Lane, and pouts.  
  
“Fine, go ahead,” he sighs, stuffs his hands in his pockets, “Tell me I’m a jerk.”  
  
Jenny tips her head and sighs, “I love you, Ben. Don’t forget that. And I don’t think you’re a jerk,” she hugs him and when she pulls back she fists her hands on the front of his shirt, “Remember what I told you the first time you called me from Pawnee?”  
  
He shakes his head.  
  
“That you are freaking boy-mayor. That caring is not a weakness.”  
  
He looks down and away and admits something he would’t to anyone else, but it’s Jenny, “It hurts.”  
  
“I know,” she hugs him again, “but it wouldn’t hurt if it didn’t matter. Now go before I cry and ruin my face.”  
  
***  
  
Ben doesn’t steer the car in any specific direction as he leaves the airport. He knew he couldn’t continue sleeping on Leslie’s couch with Jenny gone, but that doesn’t stop it from hurting like hell to turn toward his apartment instead of going to see Ella.  
  
He expects his apartment to be dirty and the air stuffy when he opens the door, but it doesn’t. It smells like lemon and the air is on. He drops the shopping bags holding his few belongings and walks into a living room. A real living room. There are plants in the windows and a series of framed black and white photographs hung on his wall. It takes him a moment to realize it but they’re of Ella: him holding Ella in the hospital and rocking her to sleep. There is one of just her looking up at the camera and another of her tiny hand in his. And the last one has a post-it stuck to it. It’s in Ron’s handwriting: This is all Leslie’s idea. Remember - like a feral pig.  
  
Ben can’t help but smile.  
  
But he quickly figures out all of it is Leslie: his favorite beer in the fridge, the freshly laundered sheets, and sorted mail. She couldn’t have done it herself, but she arranged for it. She thought of it.  
  
He wanders around the apartment for a while, discovering this home she created for him. There is a real bed in the guest room and a table in his dining room. His cable is set-up and someone even set the DVR to record a few basketball games. She even got him goddamned throw pillows and he buries his face in one and groans a little. It’s like trying to date her all over again; it’s impossible to stay mad at her. She’s so damn thoughtful.  
  
He finds the rolls of butcher paper by accident. Actually, he finds out it’s missing by accident. He’s hanging his new clothes in his closet (the things Jenny picked out for him are a little too metrosexual for his taste) and he realizes they are missing. He searches the apartment: under the bed, back of the laundry closet, and concludes they really are gone.  
  
So she saw them, he thinks, and he wonders what she thought, wonders for the first time since he came back to Pawnee with a real curiosity that isn’t bitter, how she feels.  
  
***  
  
Leslie paces. She doesn’t want to do this. Eleanor, or Ella really because Ben’s right Eleanor sounds pretentious on a baby, lies in her crib crying, screaming at the top of her lungs. Leslie is crying with her from outside in the hallway.  
  
Ann, dead on her feet, was picked up by Chris an few hours ago and currently is headed for a well deserved weekend getaway to a cabin in Northern Wisconsin. Ben left this morning to take Jenny to the airport. He never came back and Leslie isn’t sure what she expected. She half-hoped he would come back, assume more than he should, and simply insert himself in her home. But she knew he wouldn’t. There is too much between them for that.  
  
Andy and April are scheduled to come in the morning and Leslie could call them, but she doesn’t want too. That would be admitting defeat and frankly, she’s not sure they’d be much help. Instead she paces outside her baby’s bedroom, wringing her hands, and trying to gain control again. She is a mother now. She can’t do this - fall apart - when her child needs her. She knows Ella is hungry and she tried to feed her, tried to lay down in her bed and nurse her from the side like the nurses showed her. But it didn’t work. Ella wouldn’t attach and finally Leslie got so frustrated she put the baby down in her crib, went outside, and screamed just like Ann told her too. If it gets to be too much, she said, walk away for a few minutes. Don’t shake the baby, whatever you do.  
  
Her stomach cinches and Leslie cramps. She grabs hold of the wall and looks down. Her knees are shaking. Visibly shaking. And she feels so alone and unequipped right now. She’s bone tired and she doesn’t know how she’s going to do this, to get through the whole night, without someone to help.  
  
That is why she finally calls Ben. She needs help. She and her baby need help. It is 1 a.m. and it takes her swallowing every ounce of pride that Leslie has to say it, “Please come,” but she does it because that’s what mothers do.  
  
And he does without reservation or question; he is across town in a few minutes. His hair sticks up funny and he’s wearing athletic shorts, an undershirt, and dress socks with sandals, but he is here. He knocks on her door and walks in. They meet on the stairs and he gawks a little. Leslie is in a nightdress. He hesitates and she stands aside so he can pass by her and go pick up Ella. When he moves their arms brush and it stops both of them, that little bit of electricity.  
  
“Just go get her please,” Leslie says and the moment is broken.  
  
She can hear him open the door, say Ella’s name, and talk to her. She knows how he is with her, how steady and calm he stays when Leslie gets so frazzled so easily. He picks her up and heads downstairs and somewhere between the upstairs hall and the living room, Ella quiets. She still whimpers but she watches Ben’s face, transfixed by his voice. Her eyes don’t really focus yet, but Leslie knows she’s seeing Ben, recognizing him and trusting him.  
  
“There you go,” he says to Ella, “all better.”  He sinks down onto the couch. Leslie is curled up at the other end and she pulls a blanket over herself, feeling suddenly exposed. He looks at her and murmurs, “All better.”  
  
Leslie can’t help it. She tears up.  
  
He looks alarmed, “Hey, what’s wrong?”  
  
“I try to feed her cause I know she’s hungry but then it doesn’t work. She starts crying and I can’t calm her down enough to get her to try again and then we both cry and it’s awful to listen to her and know I can’t fix it. I just want to fix it for her, but I can’t and other people can,” she breathes, “You talk to her and she calms down. It’s like she knows who you are and trusts you and Ann is so good with her. Hell, she could listen to Ron read my sonic care manual all day and be happy. But with me she just cries and cries. What if I am a terrible mother? What if I can’t do this? ”  
  
“Hey, hey, hey slow down!” Ben chides in the same tone he used with Ella, “None of that is true. She responds to your voice too. She sleeps better in your arms than anywhere else. You know that. It’s just that you have the job of feeding her and it’s not always easy to breast feed. A lot of women can’t do it at all,” Leslie looks at him, puzzled, and Ben blows out air, “Chris gave me a book. But that doesn’t matter,” he shifts Ella in his arms so Leslie can see her face, “What matters is you are a great mother and she is lucky to have you.”  
  
“She still won’t eat,” Leslie says and as if on cue, Ella starts to cry again.  
  
Ben stands up to rock her, but stops and looks at Leslie, “How about we tag team this one?”  
  
This is how Leslie ends up stretched out on her bed with her baby lying next to her and Ben sitting in a chair facing the wall. He talks to Ella, keeps his voice low and steady, and it keeps Ella calm enough for Leslie to get her to nurse. He talks about playing baseball as a kid and Leslie finds herself falling into the lull of his voice. She hasn’t heard these stories before and almost doesn’t tell him to stop when Ella has fallen asleep, almost let’s him keep going just to hear the sound of his voice. But she doesn’t and once she’s adjusted herself back into her nightgown and sits back up, she tells Ben he can turn around.  
  
“She’s asleep,” he grins.  
  
“Yeah, but she’s going to be awake in a few hours and be hungry again,” Leslie says as she bends to pick her up, but Ben gets there first. Leslie follows him out into the hall and stands in the doorway as he lays Ella in her crib and turns on the baby monitor. He shuts the door softly behind them and they stand on the landing.  
  
“You know you can call me when she wakes up,” he rocks a little.  
  
Leslie pretends to check a watch, “So in two hours? At four a.m.?”  
  
“I can stay,” he says it quickly, so quickly that she’s not sure he really said it and she thinks he wants to take it back because he breaks away and looks down, “I mean if it’s easier. I don’t like being away from her. I don’t want to intrude.”  
  
“You can’t intrude…I mean she’s your daughter and you should be with her,” Leslie stammers but then stops herself and closes her eyes, “I really would like you to stay, Ben.”  
  
This draws a smile out of him and something in Leslie wrings itself out, a muscle she’d forgotten she had, and she knows what it is. It is loving him. This is the first smile that doesn’t have to do with Ella, that is purely for her, and it makes her heart ache a little.  
  
“I’ll just grab a few hours on the couch,” he holds up the portable baby monitor in his hand, “and I’ll bring her to you when she wakes up.”  
  
“You don’t have to do that,” Leslie says, “I have a guest room and a linen closet…” She trails off.  
  
And this is how Ben semi-moves in with Leslie.  
  
He helps her make up the bed with fresh sheets and says good night with an awkward wave before both of them climb into their respective beds. When Ella wakes up, Ben shuffles into her room with the crying baby. Half-asleep, Leslie takes her and he takes his place in the chair facing the wall. He tells them about his mother teaching him and Jenny how to cook and Ella nurses in peace. They repeat it at seven a.m. And in the morning when Andy and April show up, Ben has Ella set-up in the kitchen with while he makes pancakes and Leslie takes a shower. He goes home to pack a bag and comes back with groceries for the three of them. They pass the day with marathon sessions of West Wing episodes. And when Leslie falls asleep on the couch, Ben covers her with a blanket, and when she wakes up and realizes it she thinks maybe he doesn’t hate her after all.  
  
They don’t talk. Not really. At least not about the things they should be talking about. Ben has a few more weeks until he starts the job (No one is more surprised than Leslie to find out Rhonda isn’t real) and neither of them seem to be in any hurry to find a more permanent solution. Ben is there when Ella giggles (Leslie’s sure it is a giggle, Ben thinks it’s gas) for the first time and freaks out when the umbilical cord stump falls off when he’s changing her diaper. She wouldn’t trade those moments for anything.  
  
And so Leslie ignores Ann’s advice and doesn’t talk to Ben, doesn’t stir the waters of their carefully constructed world. Instead, she writes in her journal everything she wishes she had the courage to say. She fills up the last pages and at night when Ben knocks on her door with a hungry baby in his arms, before she sits up she blesses Ann for insisting on that guest room and linen closet.

***

“Do you think it’s possible to love her too much,” Leslie says, “to spoil her?”  
  
Ben looks up from the magazine he’s reading from the other end of the couch. Ella is asleep on Leslie’s chest, her head right above her heart, and Leslie laid down the book she was reading a few moments before to listen to her daughter sleep. It is intoxicating: the sounds of her breath whooshing in and out, the scrape of her tiny nails against Leslie’s breast bone as she moves in her sleep, and the nubbly soft crunch of her sleeper against Leslie’s tank top. His eye settle on the two of them, mother and daughter, and Leslie squirms a bit under his gaze. The way he looks at her, at them, makes her uncomfortable because she doesn’t know what it means. There is liquid warmth in his eyes, but she’s pretty sure it’s just for Ella.  
  
He picks up on her discomfort because he runs a hand thru his hair and looks away.  
  
“No,” he says standing up, “I don’t think it’s possible to love her too much,” he bends over Leslie and picks Ella up, “she deserves everything we’ve got.”  
  
Leslie starts to stand, to follow him upstairs, but he motions for her to stay. He’s got it.  
  
Ben has become an expert at got it. Whatever it is, he's got it. Changing diapers. Bathing. Cooking. Doing laundry. Burping. Doing more laundry. Rocking Ella to sleep. All of it. Leslie admired the ease with which he took to parenting. It doesn't come as easily to her. Loving Ella is as natural as breathing, but caring for Ella scares Leslie. She's clumsy at it. She's better in an office.  
  
Leslie settles back into the couch and curls her legs underneath her. She should sleep. Ella will be up in a few hours and Ben won’t be on duty tonight because he’s starting work tomorrow. Tonight he won’t bring her the baby, touch her shoulder to wake her up, or take his spot in the chair facing the wall. It’s become their ritual. Sometimes Ella still has trouble attaching, but really he stays because he wants to be there. Leslie still lays on her side, exposed, because the pain from her scar hasn’t quite faded yet, and she likes to nurse this way. She likes to lay next to Ella, to watch her and stroke her back. So Ben patiently faces the wall.  
  
If she didn’t already have dozens of reasons to love him that fact is enough.  
  
Tonight, though, he won’t have the baby monitor. Leslie will be on her own. He’ll still be a few steps away in the guest room. There has been no conversation about that changing. But it feels like the perfect bubble they’ve been in for the last month is about to burst. The spell is fading and Leslie has to wake up from her dream.  
  
Ben comes back down the stairs, stops a few feet from the couch, with his hands stuffed in his jeans pockets.  
  
“Penny for your thoughts?” He sits down on the couch and Leslie is tempted to stretch her feet into his lap, just so to see what he would do. He’s wearing jeans and a blue button down, untucked, with a burp rag on his shoulder and his hair askew. His feet are bare and she finds herself fascinated by them. There is something intimate about two people barefoot on a couch, she decides. Even though they have barely touched in the past month, Leslie feels closer to Ben than she ever did before. Even though they rarely have long conversations that don’t center on Ella or work or politics, she knows more about Ben than she ever did before.  
  
She knows he thinks it’s sacrosanct to fold down the corner of a book you are reading and that he puts his milk in the freezer before he drinks it. She could describe his scent because he does all the grocery shopping so her clothes are washed in his detergent, her hair in his shampoo. She may have even used his deodorant one morning when he was out for a run and hers had run out. She knows he is not a morning person and her chipper talk has garnered many death threats from across the breakfast table. He likes music on when he cooks and he doesn’t consider laundry done unless it’s put away. When he thinks she isn’t around, he has whole conversations with Ella about the idiotic people running the country. He bought her a Twins outfit and absolutely forbid Leslie from putting their daughter in the Yankee get-up that Marlene bought (But they actually win, Marlene argued). And his absolute favorite thing to do in the world is to spend Sunday morning shirtless, reading the New York Times with Ella, donned in just a diaper, curled up on his chest. It's their heart to heart time, he says. They always fall asleep like that and she notices that both of them sometimes drool .  
  
She may have gotten a picture or two of that one.  
  
“Leslie?”  
  
“Hmmm?”  
  
“Where’d you go?” he asks.  
  
She puts on a smile, “Just thinking about how I should go to bed too since I’m flying solo tonight.” She starts to stand up, but he catches her hand and she stays put.  
  
“You don’t have to,” he says. He’s still holding her hand, loosely, and Leslie pulls it away.  
  
“No,” she says, “you have to make it through a whole day at work.”  
  
He doesn’t say anything until she is at the top of the stairs, “Goodnight.”  
  
“Goodnight,” she says softly and then escapes to the safety of her room.  
  
***  
  
Ben watches Leslie escape to her room and he has half a mind to follow her, to confront her, but he doesn't. He reaches for the beer he started an hour ago and tips it back. He coughs. It's warm.  
  
Abandoning the beer, Ben reaches for the magazine, but grabs the book Leslie had been reading instead. It's a political biography on Margaret Thatcher. He reads a few pages and smiles when he gets to a part Leslie underlined. She'd written something in the margin and drawn a smiley face. He flips through the pages; there are dozens of underlined sections. He opens the front cover and finds exactly what he knew would be there. Leslie had listed in some sort of table every page she marked up for easy future reference.  
  
It is something that drives Ben mad. He can never bring himself to mark up books the way Leslie does. It mirrors how she read she reads: in giant gulps. Reading for Leslie is an activity, like a ropes course or marathon. For him, reading has always been a still process, about sinking in and letting the story take over. Not for Leslie. For her, it is something to accomplish. It isn't that she doesn't appreciate what she's read; no, in the last month, Ben figured out Leslie consumes books like she did everything in life: with passion and vigor.  
  
A new mother isn't supposed to have this much energy, is she?  
  
Ella always has a 5 a.m. feeding and once she is done Ben always goes back to bed, but not Leslie. Leslie stays up, showers, and gets dressed. When he stumbles out of bed at 7 or 8 she is hunched over the dining room table with work spread out around her in a half-moon arch of productivity.  
  
It is the only thing they've fought about.  
  
Okay, that's not true. They've fought about money too. She refused the first check he wrote to help cover Ella's expenses. Even when he presented her with a spreadsheet and explained it was an equal half she got red in the face and tore up the check. He might have called her a stubborn pain-in-the-ass and she might have told him he was a fascist (he still didn't know what that had to do with anything) and they might have stayed mad at one another for an hour until Ella giggled or pooped or just looked at them. Ben can't really remember, but it didn't matter because the fight had been forgotten. (The check wasn't. He rewrote it and continued to write one every week and she finally begrudgingly accepted it after he agreed that he wasn't going to pay rent.)  
  
But the working...that was a bigger fight. It happened after he came back from the store and found Leslie holding a budget meeting in the living room. He waited until the people were gone and Ella had gone down for a nap. Then, he cornered her in the kitchen.  
  
"That can't happen," he came up next to her as she was washing dishes. She didn't stop, didn't look at him. She just faced the sink and concentrated on the greasy pot like it were a lifeline. He turned so he was perpendicular to her, leaned a hand on the counter, and got close enough to unnerve her.  
  
"What can't happen?" she kept her voice even.  
  
Ben grit his teeth. She damn well knew what, "Meetings and early mornings strategy sessions and phone calls during the day. You're supposed to be on maternity leave."  
  
"I am. I haven't once been to the office," she dunks a pot under the soapy water. Ben looks away and inhales deep. Tries to tell himself not to push her.  
  
"You almost died. Do you realize that?" Her head jerks sideways to meet his eye. He's got her attention now and he leans in closer, so close that he can feel the heat radiating off her body, "You almost bled out upstairs in your bed. Did you see the mattress before we got rid of it? Do you remember how those first few days were? How weak you were?"  
  
Her eyes narrow, "I was there."  
  
"And you're supposed to be resting, getting better, and not running Pawnee from the dining room."  
  
"Why don't you go worry about something else. I can take care of myself," she shoves a dish towel at him and steps away, but Ben pulls her back, catches her around the waist.  
  
"No, you don't get to walk away," he says, holds her tighter when she tries to wiggle away, "We are going to talk about this."  
  
She elbows him in the stomach, pushes against his chest, but he doesn't budge, "Let go of me. You're not in charge of me Benjamin Wyatt. You don't get to order me around."  
  
"Why not? It might be good for you..." He lets go of her waist but catches her wrists in his hands. She jerks, but he's got her pinned between the counter and his body. She stills and he realizes how heavy they both are breathing. His face is inches from hers and when he meets her eye it takes every ounce of control in him not to kiss her, to thread his fingers through her hair, and take her right there in the kitchen. But her eyes, wide and frightened, stop him. He lets his hands go and steps to the side. She escapes and doesn't stop until she gets to the edge of the kitchen.  
  
He hears her footsteps still and then her voice, "Why do you care if I work?"  
  
He doesn't turn around and make eye contact. He tries to keep his voice light, nonchalant, "Because it's a bad habit. You can't keep going all the time. Eventually it's going to catch up with you."  
  
"Do you think it makes me a bad mother? That my work takes me away from Ella?"  
  
He turns now and leans against the counter, arms crossed, "No," he shakes his head, "Not at all. I just worry about you. That's all."  
  
Leslie licks her lips, "Well, don't. I planned on doing this alone and I planned on working then too. Just focus on Ella. Don't worry about me."  
  
"Okay I won't," he shrugs.  
  
"Good."  
  
"Good," she says and backs out of the room.  
  
Now, when Ben thinks about the fight, he reaches for the warm beer and tips it back. Shit is the only word that comes to mind. Shit. Shit. Shit.  
  
He does think she works too hard, but that wasn't what made him furious. It wasn't what caused him to grab her and it wasn't what kept him from kissing her.  
  
It's her fear and trepidation. It rolled off her in waves in the kitchen, but it is always under the surface. Tonight when he tried to help her, offered to help with the feedings, she brushed him off like he were some random she met in the street.  
  
It's why they haven't had the conversation. It's why even though he's been in Pawnee almost five weeks he still has no idea what actually happened between them.  
  
He knows she's attracted to him. Some times he can feel her eyes watch him from across the room, follow him, and just soak him up. He doesn't mind either. He likes to know she's thinking about him, that he's not just Ella's dad. There is still something between them.  
  
But she always pulls back, stays on this side of safe. It reminds him of those first meetings in his hotel room, when Leslie kept herself guarded. Ben hadn't been allowed in then and he wasn't allowed in now. She never talks about the pregnancy or how she got his old job. After a shower, she changes in the bathroom rather than accidentally cross him wearing nothing but a towel. She does her own laundry and sometimes even cooks her own meals. If Ella is asleep, she hides in her room or escapes to Ann's.  
  
Somewhere along the way she decided to put up walls.  
  
And he isn't doing anything to try and breech them.  
  
He hasn't forced the issue, or invaded her space since that fight, but it isn't out of respect or chivalry. He just doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know what he wants. Well, he knows what he wants but it is impossible. He wishes he could turn back time to that morning and undo whatever it was that caused her to run. He wishes he could have been there for the pregnancy and for the birth. She took that from him and he can't pretend it does't hurt. But what hurts more is that she has locked him out. And that, right there, tells him everything he needs to know about how Leslie Knope feels about him.  
  
She's in love with him.  
  
Well, he thinks she is anyway.  
  
When Leslie is scared she runs. She hides and deflects and hunkers down. And that's what she's doing with him.  
  
It's funny because when he first met her, Ben would've said nothing scared Leslie more than the realization of her dreams. It's why she spent so many hours agonizing a career move. She'd placed her dreams at arms length so they would remain shiny and dream-esque. Only when you get closer to them actually happening do you realize they aren't perfect, that they don't solve all your issues, and they can break your heart...okay that last one is him. Maybe he is speaking from experience here, but the closer you get to seeing your dream realized the scarier it becomes. What if your first impressions were wrong? What if your dream isn't everything? What if it changes or you change and it isn't enough?  
  
It's what happened to him.  
  
Maybe it was all hours holding Jenny's hand or maybe it was the heartbreak or maybe it was finally facing his father, but somewhere along the way Ben realized he'd put Leslie up on a pedestal. He had built her up to be the answer to all his problems. He'd felt like shit after Karla dumped him and he was looking for shelter and there she was, with her town and her friends and her smile. She was the perfect place to weather the storm. But then that had crashed and burned too and Ben found himself worse off than he was before: alone and sad.  
  
Which is why Ella is such a miracle. It is why he still can't believe his dumb luck. He finally knows what he wants and it isn't to redeem himself from Icetown or to make a life here in Pawnee. He wants a family. The family he and Jenny never really had, with functional people and memories and rituals. He wants nothing more than to give that to his daughter. It's not that his other dreams are gone, but since Ella they seems less important. It doesn't matter to him where or how anymore.  
  
But the who, that still does matter.  
  
And that's why he hasn't forced the issue with Leslie. He's pretty sure she is in love with him and it scares her and so she hides behind their baby, behind work, and even behind their past. She uses the old heartache to talk herself into doing everything she can to prevent a new one.  
  
And he wishes he had an answer...but she hurt him and she's not perfect. She works too much and can never find her car keys and doesn't balance her check book and calls whipped cream a meal. She is stubborn and willfully naive. She can be neurotic and obsessive and...a pain-in-the-ass. But none of that is why he wonders if he loves her or not because deep down he knows he does. He's loved her from sometime near the beginning. The problem is he doesn't know if he trusts her not to break him again.  
  
***  
  
"What. The. Hell. Are. You. Doing. With. My. Best. Friend?"  
  
Ann Perkins storms into his office, leans over his desk, and lowers her gaze to Ben's.  
  
In the background he can hear Tom, his new officemate, giggling.  
  
"Tom, out," Ann doesn't break her stare and Ben hears Tom mumble "Yes'm" and then fading footsteps.  
  
Ben knows its an smart ass thing to say, but he can't help it, "Um, unless you have parks business you'll concern will have to wait until after hours..."  
  
"Bullshit," Ann straightens, "this is the first time I've gotten you alone in a month. Now 'fess up, what the hell is going on between you two?"  
  
Ben exhales, "Sit." And Ann does in what Ben is sure was her regular chair and now it is him behind the desk and the irony is not lost on him, "What do you want to know?"  
  
"Have you talked?"  
  
"No."  
  
Ann's eyes widen and her hands fists, "Oh, I'm going to kill her. She told me you talked."  
  
Ben's gaze narrows, "And what did she say?"  
  
"She didn't. She just said you guys settled everything between you and then you moved in and I thought the drama could be over with but she's over at my house all the time and she won't talk about you so I know something is not right. "  
  
"I moved in to help with Ella. I sleep the guest bedroom. She won't even let me do her laundry."  
  
Ann settles back, smiling, "But you love her."  
  
Ben falters, but Ann just keeps grinning.  
  
"Fine, whatever. That doesn't matter."  
  
"She's in love with you, you know that?" Ann sits up, "She loved you when you left. She just freaked out."  
  
"Yeah, I know," Ben says, "but it doesn't matter."  
  
"So you both love each other and you have a kid together...tell me exactly what the problem is?"  
  
"I don't trust her," he confesses, it bubbles out of him like molten rock, desperate to reach the surface, and then when he says it there is a lump in his throat and Ann is looking at him with understanding eyes, "I don't trust her not freak out again or to choose her career over us or to not exclude me again like she did with Ella. I don't trust her."  
  
A muscle twitches in Ann's face and she looks away, leans on an elbow, and shakes her head, "That's so sad."  
  
Ben stops, "You're not going to argue with me?"  
  
"No, I mean I think you're wrong, but I don't think you're crazy to feel that way."  
  
Something in Ben sinks. He'd half hoped Ann would argue with him, tell him he is totally off base. But the fact that she doesn't is telling enough.  
  
***  
  
Leslie used to love the night, but now she hates them. She loved to hear the floorboards creak when Ben stepped across her threshold with Ella in his arms and the warm, strange intimacy of the three of them. But now it is just her and Ella and it is a struggle. Her baby cries and cries until she is exhausted and Leslie knows it because she misses Ben, his voice and his presence, and Leslie presses kisses to Ella's forehead and says, "I miss him too."  
  
It's been two weeks since he went back to work. He helped as much as he could, got Ella up for her 7 a.m. feeding, held her, and changed her before rushing out the door. Sometimes he brought groceries home with him, cooked them a meal, and together they listened to NPR in the kitchen, lingering over desert. In the evenings Leslie can hardly get Ella out of his arms and she watches them and tries not to feel jealous. She's not really sure what she's jealous of really, if it's how easy it seems between him and Ella or if it's how he looks at their with such adoration. It makes Leslie feel petty and she often escapes to her room.  
  
This is her daughter. How can she resent her daughter? The love she feels for her is overwhelming, but sometimes she wants to just scream, "What did I do to you? Why do you just cry and cry with me, but there is something about him?" She wants to shout and cry and have somebody tell her why this is so hard. When she tries to set a schedule, Ella refuses to follow. When she tries to do all the things the books say to do, Ella suddenly hates everything that worked with every other baby across time. But she feels guilty for these thoughts and so she keeps them to herself.  
  
And then one night it seems like Ella just won't stop crying and it's so loud and Leslie knows she's going to wake up Ben. And she doesn't want that. It's embarrassing.  
  
"Shhhhh," Leslie rocks her baby in her arms, walks around her bedroom, and tries to get her to calm down enough to nurse, "Please, just stop crying." She wipes her own tears with the back of her hand, "Please..."  
  
"Leslie?" There is a creak of floorboards and light from the hallway stretches in a streak across the bed.  
  
"It's fine," she says over her shoulder, "I've got this."  
  
"Let me help you," he comes in and Leslie sees him in the backlight. His hair is tousled and he's wearing sleep pants and nothing else. It makes something in her chest leap up and she knows she has to get out of this room.  
  
"No, I've got it. I'll just take her downstairs so you can go back to sleep," she tries to move past him, to get to the door, but one hand finds her elbow and the other her hip.  
  
"I don't mind," he says.  
  
But I do mind, she thinks.  
  
She trembles but she doesn't think he notices. He takes Ella from her and Leslie backs away.  
  
"Leslie, we can do this together," he says but she waves her arms.  
  
"No, you just do it, I need," she blusters, trying to hide the tears in the darkness, "You're better at it. She...she likes you better."  
  
And then she is gone and downstairs and out onto her porch. It's still spring in Indiana and the air is cool. All she has on is pajama pants and a tank top, but Leslie doesn't care. She ends up in the porch swing, curled up, and drifting in the night air. She lets herself cry and wallow and feel sorry for herself. She doesn't try to give herself a pep talk. She's too tired to do that. She didn't realize until now how entirely exhausted she is.  
  
She doesn't know how long it is, but eventually Ben finds her outside. He's put on a t-shirt and carries a blanket and the baby monitor. He hands her the blanket and when she doesn't make a move to cover herself, he does it for her, tucking the ends around her bare feet.  
  
"She's asleep," he sits down on the other end of the porch swing. The porch light slants across his face and Leslie swallows. He is looking at her with such intensity, such care, that she wants to back away. He turns his body to face her and leans an elbow up on the back of the swing, "Leslie?"  
  
She looks away, "I don't want to talk about it."  
  
"Too bad." She looks at him knows he's not backing down. She bites her lip and his expression softens, "Leslie, talk to me, please."  
  
"What if I can't do this? What if I can't be a mother?"  
  
"What are you talking about?"  
  
"I don't have the same connection with her that you do. You can always get her to calm down or to smile or do whatever you want and with me she just seems to get more frustrated. And I'm tired. I'm so tired. And it's not because you're sleeping through the night. I'm just exhausted."  
  
She doesn't realize it, but she's crying again and Ben does something she doesn't expect. He stands up and for a second she thinks he's going to leave, but then he bends and picks her up, blanket and all, cradles her as if she were Ella. And he settles back down on the swing, puts a hand to her head and guides it down to his shoulder, "Let's just sit here for a while."  
  
***  
  
The muscles in Ben's arms tighten around Leslie. He presses his lips to her brow and breathes in deep. This feels right. Finally he gets to be there. Finally he's let in.  
  
Then why does his stomach keep turning over? Why is every nerve in his body soaking this up as if it might disappear?  
  
He pushes the thoughts aside and says very quietly, "Talk to me."  
  
She doesn't lift her head, doesn't look at him. Her fingers are curled into his shirt and her knees tucked up against his ribs.  
  
"I'm tired," she says, "and not just physically."  
  
"Okay."  
  
"And I am scared."  
  
"Of what?"  
  
She finally lifts her head, "Of you."  
  
"Of me?"  
  
"Of you breaking my heart again."  
  
Ben can't help himself. He sits forward and his arms drop to his sides, "Leslie, you left me."  
  
"I know and it was because I was scared."  
  
"Scared of what?"  
  
"That I couldn't be what you deserved. That I couldn't have everything - the career and the family and the happily ever after. I thought I had to choose."  
  
"And so you chose the career?" Ben pushes her off his lap and stands, stalks away. He's down in the front yard, hands fisted at his sides when she calls his name.  
  
"I love you, Ben Wyatt."  
  
He spins, "Stop it."  
  
"I love you," she is standing on the top step. Tears stain her face but she is calm now. Ben is the one trembling, She descends the stairs and crosses, barefoot through the grass, toward him, "I love you."  
  
"Stop saying that."  
  
She is standing right in front of him, "I thought I had to choose and then I found out I was pregnant with Ella and it all became clearer. I understood that the world doesn't have to be a disappointment, that cynicism doesn't get an automatic win, unless you let it. I left that morning because when you told me about the job,"  
  
"The assistant city manager job?"  
  
"Yeah, the one I pitched to Paul when you were in D.C. The whole reason I thought of the Harvest Festival was to prove that I could do that job."  
  
There is a dawn of understanding and he remembers his last words to her, the part about her belonging there in his bed, and Ben knows Leslie. He knows that while everyone else in the world would hear that and hear it straight on by what he meant, Leslie hits things at an angle. It's what makes her brilliant. With her, everything is askew, a bit off from the rest of the world. He knows her mind and he can see it turning the phrase over, and he groans, "Leslie you should have said something."  
  
"It hurt so much to know that all my hard work didn't matter."  
  
"It would have mattered to me, if you had just said something."  
  
"And then loose you because I took your reason for staying."  
  
"Leslie, you were always my reason for staying."  
  
She licks her lips, "I wish I could undo it."  
  
He sighs, "So do I."  
  
She laughs a little and looks away, "I wish I could undo how much I hurt you."  
  
"I know."  
  
"How much I took from you - that first ultrasound, telling our friends, feeling her kick - I wish you'd been there for it."  
  
"Me too."  
  
"I think some things in life just happen. There isn't really a rhyme or reason to them. And sometimes things just don't work out."  
  
He meets her eye, "I know."  
  
"And the only thing you can do about it is react. It's the only thing we have control of really is our reactions," Ben nods. He isn't sure where she is going with this, but he'll follow. She continues, "You're the one who said when everything is on the line and your back is against a wall, you said the only option is to go big or go home. Right?"  
  
"Yeah..."  
  
"I love you," she says, "and I hurt you and so there is...is a gap, a hurdle, between us. Right?"  
  
"Leslie, it's not that simple..."  
  
"Well, let's pretend for the sake of right now it is. I can't change what happened and I can't make it go away, but I can choose how I react to it. I can choose to stop hiding from you and tell you that being a mother scares me. It is like taking everything I'm not good at and making it the most important thing in my life. It makes me want to run away and face it at the same time. And I'm tired. I'm tired from all of it, but then I look at her and it's all worth it. I look at her and I see you. I see us. And for the last two weeks every night I get through the night on my own I am choosing her over and over again because the easiest thing would be to just let you do it."  
  
"Leslie -," Ben starts, but she holds up a hand.  
  
"Let me finish. I chose Ella and I chose you. You scare me just as much as she does, but if I learned anything over these past months it's that the people in my life that make me able to be all the things I'm proud of. It's the people who make that possible. You and Ella are my people and so I'm going to face the thing that scares me the most, that I tell you I love you and then I lose you."  
  
She exhales and Ben cocks an eyebrow, "Are you done?"  
  
"Yeah," she shuffles her feet, "I think I am."  
  
He closes the gap between them, one step, two step, and three. He doesn't touch her, but he closes in so they are just a hair's breadth apart. He feels her breath on his cheek and puts his hands in his pockets.

***

Ben puts his hands in his pockets.  
  
He is standing so close to her that Leslie watches the wind tousle a piece of hair across his forehead. She reaches up to brush it away, instinctively, but stops with her hand frozen next to his face. He is watching her and there is a heat building in her stomach. She swallows and drops her hand.  
  
"Did you forget your keys?" she makes the joke and winces a little at how lame it is.  
  
“Huh?”  
  
“Your pockets. You seem to be looking for something…”  
  
“No,” he confesses, “I just really want to kiss you, but I shouldn’t so I put my hands in my pockets.”  
  
She blinks and it takes every fiber of nerve she has to ask, “Why shouldn’t you?”  
  
He wrinkles his forehead, “Because you love me and while I know how much I want to touch you, really touch you, I’m not sure about the rest and that isn’t fair to you. You deserve more.”  
  
“What are you not sure about?”  
  
“I don’t trust you not to break my heart again.”  
  
It stings, like a slap across the face, and Leslie bites her lip and backs half a step away, “That’s fair,” she forces a smile, “I mean I did leave without any explanation after one of the most incredible nights of my life and then hid a pregnancy from you. Though,” she holds up  finger, “for the record I did try to find you. I searched John Doe websites and called Karla. I even went to Partridge so you have to give me some credit. But I understand if that’s not enough. I get it. I don’t like it, but I accept it. I mean it’s going to be awkward since we have a kid together and I’m in love with you,” she exhales to stem the tears, “whew, that’s not going to change either. I mean look at you, how could I not be in love with you? You’re Ben, you’re my Ben, and you love our daughter so much and you get me,” she finally meets his eye, “You get me and no one has ever really gotten me and when I look at you it’s like I can breathe again. It’s like looking at you gives me permission to just be for awhile and not worry about -,”  
  
And Ben is kissing her.  
  
Ben. Is. Kissing. Her.  
  
It’s a long moment of sinking in, of getting over the shock, but when Leslie does she makes a sound in her throat that she hopes he can’t hear. It’s somewhere between a sigh and a groan. But he does seem to hear it because it spurs him on. He closes the distance so swiftly that she wobbles a little when he cups her face with both hands. He catches her body against his and her hands curl into his chest. Ben isn’t hesitant or sweet or casual; no, he is assured and a little rough and very much intent. He’s running his hands down her sides, thumbs scraping her breasts. He changes the angle and Leslie follows him. And finally when she isn’t sure she can go without breath much longer, he pulls away, just a millimeter away.  
  
“We’re not done talking about this,” he murmurs against her lips. He’s anchored his hands on her hips and is backing her toward the front porch. Her heel hits the bottom step and she falters, but he catches her around the waist.  
  
“I know,” her arms are working now and she hooks them around his neck.  
  
“Leslie, I...,” he stutters as they stumble up her steps, "I..I...have feelings and..."  
  
She knows he's not there yet. Deep down she's sure he loves her, never stopped loving her really, but between them is hurt and disappointment. He can't pretend it’s just gone. But it isn't everything, she wants to say. There is love too and the rest they can deal with tomorrow.  
  
Leslie knows the wheels are spinning in his head and she places a palm on either side of his face, pulls back a bit, "Shhh. It's okay."  
  
"No, it's not. We shouldn't do this. It's not fair. You deserve..."  
  
"Ben," she groans, "You're not getting me into bed under false pretenses. I know you and I trust you," her mouth curves up, "Besides, I really want you"  
  
His face splits into a grin and then he tips his forehead against hers and closes his eyes, "I've missed touching you so much. I used to fall asleep at night thinking of you and how soft your skin is and I was doing so good until you started giving that speech. When you give your speeches…”  
  
“They make people believe in something.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
She grins against his mouth, “Jenny told me.”  
  
“The part I didn’t tell her is they kind of turn me on too,” he says and Leslie laughs. Really laughs for the first time in to long.    
  
He is pushing them back against the door and Leslie hits it with a little umphf. His fingers lace through hers and he grinds against her and she can feel how much he wants her.    
  
Leslie feels wanton. It’s the middle of the night and she’s making out on her front porch like a lovesick teenager. Ben slips his hands under her tank and spreads his palms across her back. It’s possessive and she likes it. She likes feeling their weight pulling her closer to him. Her brain forms coherent thoughts just for a moment…getting down to the mechanics. Yes, she’d had her check-up a week ago and was cleared to do this. The scar on her stomach still hurts a little and when the planes of his stomach presses against hers there is pain, but not enough to get her to stop. Yes, this could happen. Just because it could, though, didn’t mean it should. A mother doesn’t do these types of things…right?  
  
And that’s the thought that releases her. Leslie can do this. Maybe a mother wouldn’t, but at the end of the day Leslie has to hold onto herself. She can’t lose herself in motherhood. It is just a facet, albeit a core one, of who she is, but her baby is safe asleep upstairs and this man is the man. She meant it when she told him she was going to go big or go home. She is tired of being tired. She is done with feeling inferior or wishing she was behind a desk. She’d be back there in enough time. The nerves of motherhood were never going away, but she doesn’t have to let herself be consumed by them.  
  
“Hey, you still with me?” Ben stops kissing her neck and looks at her. His thumbs knead her shoulders, “It’s okay if you’ve changed your mind…”  
  
Leslie smiles and shakes her head, “No, I’m happy.”  
  
He focuses on her and she can tell he knows there is something she isn’t telling him, but she will. She’ll tell him sometime when she isn’t minutes away from getting his clothes off.  
  
She runs her hands across his chest, down his sides, and possessively grabs his butt, “Why’d you stop,” she cocks her head, “By my guess we have an hour before she’s up again.”  
  
“Actually it’s seventy two minutes, if she sticks to the pattern.”  
  
“Numbers robot,” she grins and he is kissing her again and they are fumbling with the door knob, falling into the house, stripping off shirts and untying sleep pants.  
  
They are to the stairs when Leslie remembers,“Ben, the baby monitor…”  
  
He groans, breaks away, and half jogs outside. Leslie watches him, his tapered, wiry frame pale in the night light. He’s kept up running, she thinks, and is eating more protein and fewer salads. He’ll never be big, but there is some muscle there and Leslie can’t deny it’s hot. She taps her fingers against her stomach. In the time he is gone, doubt enters her head.  
  
What if her scar scared him…  
  
What if he didn’t find her attractive now with that last bit of baby weight still not gone…  
  
The last time, she thinks, had been almost surreal. Encouraged by alcohol, she’d been gloriously uninhibited with him. Self-consciousness went by the wayside and they’d existed in a single, perfect night. Everything had been new. Everything had been heightened. This time it’s different. Her mind is shooting in a dozen different directions, running thru lists and making new ones, and there is a baby in the other room that will be up soon. This isn’t like then. This is real and tomorrow will come much too soon with its complications and qualifications.  
  
“Leslie?” Ben is back and stands before her with a look of hesitation, “We really don’t have to do this if you don’t want to?”  
  
“Huh?” She says, “No, I’m sorry. My mind is just thinking all these things, but I’m here and I want this.”  
  
He wrinkles his nose.  
  
She falters, “Did I just ruin it?”  
  
He waits a beat and doesn’t say anything. He takes two steps so they are level and silently holds out his hand. She takes it and follows him upstairs and across the threshold of her bedroom. She purposefully steps on the creaking floorboard as if to announce their arrival.  
  
He lays her down on the bed and reaches for the lamp sitting on a chair next to it.  
  
“You don’t need to turn it on,” She sits up to stop him, but he smiles and kisses her.  
  
“I want to see you.”  
  
In the soft glow of the lamp, he skirts her shirt up her ribs but stops there. He is straddling her now, shirtless and with an erection pressing against his sleep pants. Leslie’s breath hitches as he leans down and with the lightest kisses spans the width of her scar. There is a dull ache low in her belly and Leslie doesn’t know if it is pain or something else, but she doesn’t care. He moves up to kiss her forehead and says, “You are beautiful.”  
  
And that’s what she needs. She exhales and rolls over so they lay side by side. Her hands play with the waistband of his pants and slip beneath to grasp him.  
  
Leslie jerks her hand too hard and he hisses in pain. When her mouth replaces her hand she has to be careful not to use too much teeth, but eventually she gets the rhythm and is satisfied by the grasps and groans she ellicits from him. Eventually he tugs her back up and pays attention to her swollen breasts. But when he kneads them a little milk squirts him in the chest and they both stop in complete shock. She covers her mouth with her hand and says, “Oh, my god I am so sorry,” and Ben does look a little mortified for a moment, but he actually swipes some with his finger and tastes it.  
  
“That is not sexy,” she laughs, “not at all.”  
  
He shrugs, “It’s sweeter than I thought it would be,” and goes back to kissing her. It’s silently agreed to that at least for now he can look but probably not touch.  
  
He makes her come with his mouth and they are both sweating when he falls down next to her in the bed, a hand lazily rubbing her back. She glances at the clock and realizes they don’t have much longer if Ben is right and they’d better hurry, get it done. She groans a little into the pillow and is about to say Is this what it’s going to be like forever…but stops herself because that implied this is a sure thing, that there is a forever.  
  
But she doesn’t think too hard about it because Ben is doing this thing with his lips on her collar bone and his fingers are dancing down there again, rubbing the nub that is already so sensitive. She buckles and sighs a little and he says, “I love this. Discovering you again. Maybe for the first time,” he leans up on an elbow, still using his other hand to touch her, “Not that that night wasn’t incredible, but now it seems surreal.”  
  
“I had the same thought earlier,” she murmurs. Really, if he wants to actually have sex he’s going to need to get on it because she is half asleep already. Everything is pleasant and the world seems to be floating away.  
  
“But I like this more.” This gets her attention and she opens her eyes. He’s got that half smile on his face that she loves, the lazy happiness, “I don’t have you up on this pedestal anymore and finally I get to really see you. And it’s so much better than I remember.”  
  
She isn’t sure where this introspection is coming from, but she holds out a hand, “Nice to meet you, Ben Wyatt.”  
  
He kisses her cheek, almost shyly, “Nice to meet you Leslie Knope.”  
  
They do actually have sex.  
  
Miraculously Ella stays asleep and they steal the time to explore each other. Ben does not seem in a hurry and so Leslie follows his lead. He finds all the angles of her body and presses his lips to them. He searches for ticklish spots and practices techniques to get her to make all sorts of noises that seem to turn him on. She figures out that when he’s inside of her if she tips her hips forward that extra bit it elicits a groan from him that turns her on. And for the first time ever Leslie doesn’t want him to make it quick. She likes him inside her with her legs hitched up over his hips and his face buried in her neck. He trembles a little and it makes Leslie feel strong and womanly. It’s kind of like cradling Ella, but completely different, somehow baser and wild .  
  
And when he is close to coming he presses down where they are joined, strokes her, and lights her up. He sets the pace and she willingly follows and when he presses his forehead to hers and says in grasping breath, “Come over. Come over with me.”  
  
She comes undone.  
  
***  
  
When Leslie wakes up she is alone. It takes a moment for it to sink in, that there should be someone in the bed with her, but when it does she jumps up and out of bed. She grabs the first piece of clothing she can find, Ben’s discarded t-shirt, and pulls it on. But before she can go in search of him there is a creak from the floorboard and she looks up. Ben stands on the threshold holding Ella in the crook of his arm.  
  
“Somebody missed you,” he says and Leslie lights up.  
  
“Hey there bugaboo,” she says as she takes her from him and returns to the bed. Ella turns her head to Leslie’s chest. Ben is still standing at the foot of the bed, watching, but when Leslie looks at him nervously he straightens.  
  
“I’ll go over there and sit,” he points to his usual chair.  
  
“No,” Leslie forces her voice even, “there’s no reason now that…”  
  
“Yeah, it’s not like I didn’t see them when we were…” They both grin like idiots and Ella, impatient at her dopey parents, does the closest thing to an infant eye roll and lets out a shriek.  
  
“You can watch,” she says, “I read some men like to watch. It helps them bond with the babies.”  
  
“Oh, okay,” his voice is a little fainter.  
  
Leslie has never felt more self-conscious than she does now. Not even in doctor’s visits with her legs up in stirrups and Chris standing next to her. Nope, this is much more awkward than even that. She hands Ella to Ben and scoots back on the bed. She can feel him watching her and she swears she can actually hear him swallow when she takes the t-shirt off. She wraps the sheet up around her stomach and arranges the pillows so she and Ella can lie down. It’s not necessary to feed like this anymore; her incision isn’t that sore. But this is how Ella likes to feed and Leslie likes to do it in the mornings and at night. She holds up her hands for Ella and Ben stands awkwardly at the side of the bed.  
  
“You can lay down too,” Leslie says. She feels ridiculous with him watching her with such bigs eyes. It’s not sexual as much as nerves. He’s watching her as if she were some nature exhibit. She imagines the voiceover of some nature show, See the woman feed her offspring. See how the child latches onto the nipple and calms as the mother’s milk beings to flow.  
  
It makes Leslie laugh and that startles him.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Nothing,” she smiles. Ella is attached and Leslie can feel both of them relax a bit. She meets Ben’s eye, “Hi.”  
  
He meets her smile with his own, “Hi.”  
  
“Last night…”  
  
“Was incredible,” he finishes and she nods. They are silent for a while, both watch Ella, and after a few minutes Leslie sees his hand move down his side and reach for her finger tips. He doesn’t hold her hand really, just rests the pads of his fingers on hers. And there, in this perfect cocoon of happiness, Leslie begins making her plans.  
  
***  
  
“I’m going to court you,” Leslie says over dinner later that evening.  
  
Ben called in sick to work and they’d spent the day holed up in the house with Ella. There had been sex on the couch while she took an afternoon nap and in the aftermath Leslie fell asleep on top of Ben. She woke up to him lazily rubbing her back and watching a rerun of Murder, She Wrote. But there had been lots of time to work and plan and scheme too. Leslie filled up pages with notes and ideas and now she was ready to present them to Ben.  
  
“What?” he chokes on the spaghetti he’d made for the two of them. Ella gurgles in her carrier.  
  
“I’m going to court you,” she says it matter-of-fact, takes a bite, and chews while she watches his reaction play across his face.  
  
“I’m sorry, but what do you mean by court me?”  
  
Leslie straightens and pushes her plate aside, “Court, date, seduce whatever you want to call it, I’m going to do it.”  
  
“I think you’ve succeeded in the seduction department.”  
  
“Har har har,” she nudges his elbow with hers, “Ben, I’m serious.”  
  
He puts his fork down and folds his arms across his chest, “Okay, tell me what the point of this is.”  
  
“I’m going to get you trust me again.”  
  
“Leslie, you can’t make a ten-step plan and at the end of it guarantee that everything will be fixed. It doesn’t work that way.”  
  
“What else am I supposed to do? Nothing?”  
  
“What are you trying to accomplish?” His frustration is palatable.  
  
Leslie can’t believe he doesn’t get it, “I don’t want to lose you. I want us to be together.”  
  
“I’m here, aren’t I? I am the father of your child and I live in your house. How much more here do you want?”  
  
She scoots her chair back as the panic starts to rise up in her throat, but she forces herself to stop. She said last night she was going to go big or go home and she meant it so she steadies her voice, “I want you to choose me. I don’t want you here just because of Ella. I want you here because of me too.”  
  
“Leslie,” he unfolds his arms, leans over the table, and captures her hand in his.  
  
“Ben, I know-,”  
  
“No, you don’t know because in all this time I’ve never actually told you how I feel about you.”  
  
“You’re not ready,” she whispers.  
  
“Stop,” he tips his eyes up at her and she listens, “Leslie, it’s always been you. For me, you are it. From the moment I saw you I keep coming back to you,” He loosens his hold on her hands, breaks away, “When I got that call about Jenny all I wanted to do was to come over here and ask you to come with me. I was beside myself and all I wanted was you but I didn’t understand what had happened and I needed to get on a plane.”  
  
This stings the corners of her eyes, but she tells herself not to cry.  
  
“But in all those months,” Ben scoots forward in his chair so their knees are touching under the table, “in the midst of all my confusion and anger and hurt it never stopped being you. And now with Ella it just confirms everything from before. You’re it for me. Always will be.”  
  
“Then why…”  
  
He blows out a breath, “I don’t want us to happen just because of Ella. I want us to be together because we choose to be and I’m not sure you’ll always choose me.”  
  
“What do you mean? I’m choosing you right now…”  
  
“Choosing me means letting me in. Not telling me about the job that morning or about your fears that’s not letting me in. Not telling me about Ella. Leslie all you had to do was pick up the damn phone and you didn’t. You chose to do it on your own. Even these past weeks you’ve continually chosen to do it on your own,” he clenches his hands, “And that scares the shit out of me. What happens if you want to run for office, but I don’t think you should? Or if I get a job in another city…” he shakes his head, “I just don’t trust that you’ll choose me. I wish I could change that, but I can’t.”  
  
Leslie locks her jaw, “So you want me, just not the ambitious part?”  
  
“No,” he says, “That’s not fair. That’s not what I’m saying.”  
  
“Then what are you saying?”  
  
“That I want to be the nonnegotiable part of your life. I want me and Ella to take priority over everything else.”  
  
Leslie sits back, “I don’t think you’re being fair. I do choose you and Ella, my friends and the people of Pawnee, every day in my work and my priorities,”  
  
“Leslie, that’s what I’m talking about. Me and Ella can’t be lumped into work and Pawnee. We’re different. We can’t be managed and put on a to do list. We…I need to get an equal say.”  
  
 She stands up and so does Ben, but she doesn’t let him talk. Why can’t he understand that she is choosing him in every way she knows how?  She is shaking as she says, “How dare you tell me my goals are subject to discussion! The things I want to accomplish are part of who I am. They are what I do,” She wraps both arms around her waist,  “I can’t separate them from me any more than I could Ella at this point. I just can’t. And if you can’t live with that then maybe you’re right. Maybe this won’t work.”  
  
“Hey,” Ben closes the gap between them and cups her face with both of his hands, “I’m not saying this can’t work. I want it to work. I’m just saying you can’t create a list action items and think that’ll solve our problems.”  
  
“That’s not what I’m trying to do.”  
  
“Then what are you trying to do?”  
  
“I want to pretend that we’re doing this in the right order. I want to show you how much I love you. I want you to love me.”  
  
He squeezes his eyes shut, “I’m not saying this right I’m sorry about that, but Leslie you’ve got to know how I feel about you it isn’t like anything I’ve ever felt for anyone else” He’s still holding her face and when he opens his eyes he tips her head back a little, to catch her eyes with his, “but I don’t know if it’s enough without trust so I can’t say it. I’m sorry I can’t until…”  
  
“Until I prove to you that -,”  
  
“It’s not about proof Leslie. You can’t make someone trust you. It just is or isn’t there.”  
  
“Well, that’s dumb,” Leslie shakes her head, “There is always something you can do. There’s always a solution. I just have to come up with one.”  
  
He smiles wryly, “If there is anyone I wouldn’t bet against at this point it would be you,” and he pulls her into a hug.  
  
Leslie buries her face in his chest, breathes deep, and pulls away. She is all business now, “Okay, what is your favorite flower?”    
  
***  
  
Being courted by Leslie reminds Ben of two facts about her: she may be the most thoughtful person in the world and she also might be the strangest.  
  
The next day every available surface of his office is filled with sunflowers ( _the first thing he could think of when she asked was that mural up on the third floor_ ). At lunch he gets a singing telegram from a “mysterious” admirer asking him out on a date and he spends the rest of the afternoon assuring the Parks department that it really is from Leslie as Ron sharpens a spear at his desk. Later, when he is exhausted and all he wants to do is go home and hold his daughter, from across the parking lot he thinks he sees someone sitting in the passenger seat of his car. Startled, he calls security and when they approach it turns out to be a giant teddy bear holding a box of chocolate.  
  
But nothing prepared him for the eagles.  
  
Well, he’s not sure they were eagles. They definitely were some sort of bird of prey though. They circle over Leslie’s house when he pulls into the drive way and he stops long enough to stare up at them. This is a mistake because they nose dive, one by one, at him and he has to sprint across the yard, carrying the giant teddy bear under one arm and his briefcase under the other, as they swoop over his shoulder. One gets a talon grip on his shirt, rips it, and he stumbles into the house panting and shouting.  
  
“Leslie, don’t take Ella outside. I’ve got to call animal control. There is some sort of infestation of birds…”  
  
But Leslie is clapping her hands and jumping up and down, “Wasn’t it great! They fell for you…get it? Kind of like me.”  
  
Ben runs a hand through his hair, “What the hell?”  
  
“I hired them, well I actually hired the guys from animal control who train the eagles, to do that. Isn’t it great?”  
  
“Yeah,” he is still panting, “Fantastic.”  
  
But then Leslie is taking the bear and briefcase from him and leading him to the kitchen. She says something about Ella being at Ann’s for exactly an hour and a half and how they hadn’t christened the kitchen yet…  
  
***  
  
Really, though, it is kind of awesome being courted by Leslie Knope.  
  
She leaves notes in his lunch ( _he packs his own lunch otherwise he’d go into a sugar coma every afternoon_ ) with kiss monsters on it. She makes him mixes ( _they’re working on less Sarah McLachlan songs_ ) that he uses to tune out Tom who turns out to be the worst officemate ever. She orders the Star Wars version of Monopoly and they spend three days locked in an epic battle for ownership of the Death Star.  
  
There is the sex, though not a ton because they do have an infant. Most evenings they collapse into bed in a tangle of arms and legs and weary muscles that Leslie rubs lazily for him as she watches the news. And Ben wouldn’t admit it to a soul but he likes the simple affection more than the sex. He likes the twenty minutes Leslie reads every night before she goes to bed. He likes waking up to find the entire bathroom mirror covered in sticky notes because Leslie couldn’t sleep and camped out in there to think. He is even getting used to the piles of stuff, of everything and anything that Leslie is incapable of putting away, that seem to breed like rabbits. Ann assures him it could be much worse and Leslie hired a cleaning service to come in once a week so the house isn’t exactly dirty as much as it is just cluttered. The kitchen is his domain now so Leslie is careful not to allow her mess to creep in there.  
  
So Ben just isn’t in any sort of a hurry to think about the future because this, them right now, is too perfect.  
  
It is first dates ( _picnic and star gazing in Lot 48, which breaks ground later in the summer, and is set to be ready when school starts back up in September_ ) and white wine and cuddling and lots of History Channel watching. It is barbecues with Ann and Chris and a strange pseduo-baptism Leslie convinces Ron to perform in Ramset Park that makes Ann and Chris and April his daughter’s godparents. It’s letting Ella wear the bib April bought her for the ceremony that says  _These dumb asses put my cape on backwards_ and laughing about it later with Leslie.  
  
It is Saturdays at the Farmer’s Market with Ella strapped to his chest as Leslie moves from booth to booth. She doesn’t buy the produce; she wouldn’t know what to do with it. But she does know the name of every single vendor. She knows where their kids go to school and what they’re summers were like. And Ben watches her do it, knowing she isn’t aware of it, that she is friendly because she believes that’s what people do, but he watches her campaign for some future office and he knows it’s something she’s got to do.  
  
It is thoughts like that he wishes would go away - thoughts about future plans because for which he’s not ready.  
  
He wants to keep it like this, a perfect summer like the last one. Of course this one is better because Ella is here. Ella, who smiles at him now and blinks with Leslie’s big blue eyes, makes every moment, every touch, among the three of them, sweeter and heavier some how as if his life has taken on more heft and weight because she exists. He wants to give her the family he didn’t have. He wants her to grow up to be exactly like Leslie, though maybe a little more practical, and the thought of missing a single moment kills him each time he considers the possibility.  
  
And that is why the awkward moments are so terrible. People assume or they ask and he tries to explain it, but he can’t.  There is the time Leslie has a photographer come and take newborn pictures of Ella; they each posed with the baby, but when the photographer suggested they move onto family shots Ben stammers they don’t need them. He just keeps talking and soon their entire situation spills out in half finished sentences. And when the photographer leaves neither of them talk for a long time. Then there is the strange time when that reporter, Shauna with the double last name, asks him out and he tries to tell her he’s seeing someone, actually that someone is the mother of his child and he lives with her but they are dating but it was complicated and…yeah, that one didn’t go so well either. There are the questions from everyone they know too: Ann, Chris, Jenny, Ron, and hell even Andy wants to know what Ben is doing to Leslie because she is the coolest and he better not be a douchebag. But Ben can’t find his voice when people ask. In his head, he can explain it, but when he tries to put to words what is going on between them he can’t.  
  
But never is it more terrible than when Leslie tells him she loves him. She doesn’t say it often or with any pattern Ben can follow. It just bubbles up out of her when she wakes up from a nap and finds he’s made her waffles for dinner. She says it after she catches Ben reading the Declaration of Independence to Ella and when he hangs the bird houses he finds in the linen closet on her back porch. And one night as they come together she says it into his shoulder over and over and Ben cradles her as she catches her breath. He holds her a few inches away from him so he can watch her face. Her eyes are closed but her fingers find his neck and press against his pulse. It is hammering, careening wildly like hers, from what just happened between them.  
  
Between breaths she says, “Tell me you love me. I know you do. Just say it. Pretend everything is fixed and say it just once.”  
  
“Leslie…” and he stammers through something about feelings and hopes and admiration, but it isn’t the words she wants and he doesn’t know why he can’t say them. He doesn’t know why his throat locks up.  
  
And it isn’t the hurt in her eyes that kills him, it’s the resolve that replaces it when she shakes it off, arches her back, and threads her fingers through his hair, “Well, I’ll just have to try harder next time.”  
  
***  
  
“So then Mommy had a little too much,” Leslie pauses, “um milk with Aunt Ann and they danced all night but your mommy felt terrible because she had yelled at your daddy. So that’s our first fight…” She straightens, “Wait, I think our first fight was actually in the conference room…”  
  
Ella spits up and Leslie sighs.  
  
“Yeah, it doesn’t really matter to you does it?” She puts down the marker she was using and reaches for a burp rag. When she can’t find one she picks up the tail of her shirt and uses it. This, she thinks, is what motherhood  does to you, isn’t it?  
  
Ella blows bubbles and kicks her feet and Leslie tickles her tummy. She sinks down into a chair so she is eye level with her daughter who sits in her carrier on the dining room table. Next to her is Leslie’s latest project. Leslie looks at it and then at Ella, “Do you think this will work?”  
  
 The butcher paper is rolled out in long nine foot strips and Leslie is painstakingly writing out, with the thick black marker, the words from her journal, her words to Ben. She has two sheets done and is only thru the first few weeks of him being gone. But she is committed to this idea. It’ll be the last thing she does to court Ben; it’s the only way she can think of that might attempt to show him her side of the story. Telling it to him would be easier, but something in Leslie wants to give him space. She’d needed that space, all those months when he was gone, so that when she saw his words about her she’d understood. She had been able to see herself as he had: strong, capable, and worthy. And that had given her the will to be that kind of person, the kind of person who knows how to love and be loved.  
  
And she hopes in her words, he might find the same.  
  
***  
  
“I’m moving to Pawnee.”  
  
“What?” Ben stops the stroller. He is barely to the end of the drive way and less than ten seconds into his conversation with Jenny.  
  
“I’m moving to Pawnee,” Jenny repeats. Ben can hear the silent eye roll across the miles, “Are you gong deaf?”  
  
“But why?”  
  
“Seriously you have to ask?” Jenny says and Ben hears the sound of a thump over the line.  
  
“Because of me?”  
  
She snorts, “No, doofus. Cause of Ella. She’s as close as I’ll get to a daughter so I’m moving to Pawnee so I can spoil her rotten.”  
  
As if she heard the sound of her name, Ella shrieks and Ben hastily starts walking. Satisfied, she gurgles happily and Ben muses they won’t need Jenny to spoil Ella. He and Leslie are well on their way to being completely wound around her tiny little finger.  
  
“You don’t have to move here. We planned on visiting at the end of the summer.”  
  
“Not soon enough. I want to see her every day.” There is another thump and Ben has to hold the phone away as Jenny drops it and cursing ensues.  
  
“What are you doing?” Ben says when she picks back up.  
  
“I’m cleaning out my spare room. Gotta unload some of this stuff before I move.”  
  
“Seriously, Jen. You don’t have to give up your whole life. You’ll get to see her.”  
  
Jenny sighs, “Ben, what kind of life do you think I have here? All of my friends are married with kids. I work and I crash other people’s family night dinners. I’ve already found tenets for the house and I’ve been packing for two weeks. I’ve made a few contacts with some of the local shops and studios and they’re interested in some of my work. I’m going to take another week to pack and then I’m going on a three week vacation to Colorado because hell I’ve never seen a mountain. That puts me there in a month just in time for Ann and Chris’ wedding. ”  
  
“But you’ve always loved Partridge,” he mutters.  
  
Jenny is quiet for a beat and says in a low voice,“Is there a reason you don’t want me to come to Pawnee?”  
  
“No,” he says hastily, “I just want to make sure you’ve weighted the pros and cons.”  
  
“Liar! For some reason this idea makes you incredibly uncomfortable.”  
  
“No, really I’m thrilled that you’re going to drop your life and take my daughter shopping and pierce her ears and paint her nails,” Ben cringes as he says it. It’s like giving Jenny ammunition.  
  
“Bullshit,” she says, “What’s going on Wyatt?”  
  
He shrugs, “It’s nothing. I mean it just doesn’t seem prudent for you to move all the way here if there is a chance that,” he mumbles the rest, “I-may-not-be-staying-in-Pawnee.”  
  
Jenny hisses, “Unless Leslie Knope has been body snatched by aliens and is suddenly open to leaving Pawnee, you must seriously thinking of leaving her? And Ella? Are you a total and complete fuck-tard?”  
  
Ben closes his eyes. He knew she wouldn’t understand.  
  
Of course he doesn’t want to leave Ella. The thought of missing even a day of her life kept him up at night.  
  
And Leslie? God, he didn’t want to leave Leslie either, but if she broke his heart again? If at the end of this courting thing they still hadn’t worked it out, if he still looked at her and in the back of his mind worried she was making plans without him, then what choice did he have? The last time he’d thought about her every day and that was when he was hundreds of miles away from her. But to live in the same town? To constantly go back and forth with Ella? It’d be months before he could take her on his own even for a night so he’d have to go to her house to see Ella, to the place where they’d been a family even for a little while, and…well, Ben just didn’t think he could do it.  
  
There is a moment of every day when he wakes up and Leslie is already up, in the shower or feeding Ella or working, and he is be alone in the silver morning light. It filtered in through the curtains and he always thought of it as trick light. It was morning; it should be bright, lively, and happy. That’s how he should be. He had everything in front of him if only he could step forward and take it. But he wasn’t bright, lively, and happy. He was like that light: burgeoning with the promise of something new, but with the curtains drawn there was shadowy quality, something not quite right. That’s how Ben felt. There was something missing - and it had to be the fact that he didn’t fully trust Leslie…right? That had to be it…  
  
Ben has spent too much time thinking about what would happen if this didn’t work out.  It would turn him bitter and then he’d become like his father. He’d resent Leslie and he didn’t want to do that to Ella. He didn’t want her growing up with an angry, confused father. He’d rather be the distant holiday dad who takes her to Hawaii for spring break and plies her with toys. He’d love her from afar and he could live with being a slight disappointment of a father if it meant sparing her that angry man. He knew the bitter, angry man and he knew that guy was in him because he’d been so close to giving into it when Jenny had been sick. He’d fallen asleep at night cursing anything and everything for handing his family such shitty cards. He blamed his mother for not being strong enough and his father for being selfish enough to go out and create a replacement family. Jenny may have been able to forgive them, but Ben wasn’t. Most of the time he didn’t think about it, but after Leslie and during Jenny’s illness he couldn’t keep it out of his mind. But first Jenny, then Becca, and finally Leslie and Ella had dragged him back to his normal self again. He was truly thankful and almost completely happy. But if Leslie broke him again he didn’t know if he could find his way back another time.  
  
And he’d rather cut off his right arm than subject his daughter to that.  
  
“Jenny, I don’t want to talk about it,” he says and there must be something in his voice because for once in her life, Jenny doesn’t push him. She isn’t happy, but she says nothing.  
  
“Fine,” she says, “be a dumb ass, but I’m moving to Pawnee cause it’s not about you.”  
  
***  
  
“Ann, everything you own is too sexy!” Leslie whines from the bedroom.  
  
She comes out into the living room where Ann is sitting on the couch playing with Ella.  
  
“But I thought this is supposed to be Ben’s fantasy date,” Ann wrinkles her nose, “isn’t sexy kind of the point?”  
  
“Yeah, but when I asked him what he wanted to do he suggested cuddling on the couch to a Star Wars marathon.”  
  
“Whoa,” Ann bends over Ella, “your daddy is such a nerd.”  
  
Ella gurgles and kicks her feet. Leslie checks her watch; it was in fact time for her to eat. She must get her punctuality from Ben.  
  
Ann hands Ella off, “You could always dress up as Princess Leia…”  
  
“Do you own a gold bikini?”  
  
“No.”  
  
Leslie sighs, “Yeah, neither do I.”  
  
Leslie settles back into the couch as Ella happily starts to eat under the blanket. She feels Ann’s gaze on them and watches her best friend’s face for a moment. There is something there that Leslie can’t read, something like a sadness.  
  
“Ann, are you okay?”  
  
“What?” she sits forward, “of course. Yes. I’m going to get some water. Do you want some?”  
  
“Sure.” Leslie is bewildered but she can’t follow Ann to the kitchen. Leslie follows her through the kitchen by the sounds: the footsteps on linoleum, a cabinet door opening, and two glasses being set on the counter. She opens the freezer and Leslie recognizes the clink of ice cubes into the glasses, but then there is a silence. The freezer door hasn’t shut yet and Leslie imagines Ann leaning against it, giving herself time to regain her composure.    
  
Was there a problem with Chris? Did they fight? Leslie panicked that maybe the wedding had been called off…She’d been so wrapped up in Ella and Ben lately that her best friend duties had been shoved aside. She peaks under the blanket at Ella who is half asleep, “You aren’t making this any easier,” she mouths at her daughter, but Ella ignores her.  
  
“Here you go,” Ann returns with two glasses of water and hands one to Leslie. She sits not on the couch but in a chair further away from Leslie. She crosses her legs and sips her water, eyes skewed sideways.  
  
“Ann, what’s going on?”  
  
“Nothing,” she shrugs, “just here to help my best friend, like always.”  
  
“What is that supposed to mean?”  
  
“Nothing. I’m happy to help. Always help.” She is looking at Ella again, or rather the blanket covering Ella up and Leslie shifts, uncomfortable this time.  
  
“Something is going on and you’re going to tell me what it is,” Leslie sits forward best she can.  
  
Ann’s eyes flash, “You’re not my mother, Leslie.” She stands and starts to walk out of the room. Leslie is almost ready to detach Ella, to wake her up and send her screaming, just to follow Ann but her friend comes back.  
  
“You know what’s wrong,” Ann shouts, but remembers Ella and hisses in an undertone, “There is nothing I’d rather be than a mom and I can’t. That’s what wrong. All you wanted to do was have the career and somehow you end up with this perfect beautiful family and it’s not fair.” She blinks back tears and drops down onto the couch, curls her feet under her.  
  
“Ann, you have Chris.”  
  
“I do,” she nods, “and I love him so much, but I want a family. A big rambling family,” she forces a smile through the tears and shrugs, “I want to be that stay home mom who drives a mini-van and whose socks don’t match because she gets dressed in the dark. I want to be puffy and pregnant and tired. I want to have Chris’s babies, little super humans who are going to live to be a hundred and fifty, and I want to do it with my best friend. I want our kids to be the same age and to have play dates. And it’s just not going to happen…”  
  
“But Ann, certainly you haven’t tried everything,” Leslie finds Ann’s hand and holds it fast.  
  
“We have. We really have. We’ve been to doctors and done fertility treatments. We done the herbal remedies and measured my ovulation cycle. It’s totally wreaked our sex life and I’m crying all the time because it’s my fault. It’s my body that is broken.”  
  
“You don’t know that! Maybe it’s Chris. Maybe his little buddies are you know…” Leslie shudders a little at the thought of Chris’ little buddie, but Ann doesn’t notice. She’s wiping her nose with the back of her hand.  
  
“Nope, they’re like bionic men. The doctor said they were even faster than normal. But my uterus is a hostile environment. That’s what the doctor told us.”  
  
Ella finishes and Leslie detaches her. Ann is there to take her and Leslie let’s her. She cradles the baby close, stroking the high brow and curve of her nose, “She’s so perfect…”  
  
Leslie puts herself back together and scoots closer to Ann on the couch, “Ann, why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?”  
  
Ann doesn’t look up from Ella, “You’ve had so much going on…”  
  
“But that doesn’t mean I can’t be here for you.”  
  
“Leslie don’t take this the wrong way, but you’ve had some major drama going on the past few months. I couldn’t handle it seeping into my own problems.”  
  
It does sting, but Leslie understands. She lays her head on Ann’s shoulder, “Well, we’re done with the drama. Everything is going back to normal.”  
  
“What about you and Ben?”  
  
“Yeah, right now I don’t care about that. Right now it’s just me and you and her. And that’s enough…”  
  
***  
  
For some reason, Ben finds himself looking at Ann and Chris’s wedding as some sort of deadline for him and Leslie.  
  
They are still in the midst of Project Court Ben, as she sometimes calls it. Last night they’d gone on a fantasy date. She’d surprised him by renting out a screen at the movie theater and somehow scored the Empire Strikes Back from the film archive department at the University of Indiana. They watched it alone with their feet propped up and popcorn between them. And when Han was being lowered into the carbonite Leslie started kissing his neck and pretty soon they were making out. It was exactly the fantasy date he’d had as a teenager and it was awesome.  
  
What isn’t awesome is that Leslie, since that night in bed when she asked him to tell her he loved her, hadn’t said I love you. There hadn’t been any other shift in her behavior. It was so slight an aberration that Ben didn’t realize until a few days after his conversation Jenny. It meant that he’d hurt her and the fact that he didn’t realize it right away confirmed what Jenny had said.  
  
He is a total and complete fuck-tard.  
  
So he tries to step it up. In his mind, he is running out of metaphorical time. If he doesn’t get his act together by the wedding it will all come unraveled. He makes dinner every night and talks assistant city manager strategy with Leslie even though she is supposed to be on maternity leave until July.  He stops by Lot 48 every day on his way home from work to oversee the progress. He brings back pictures for her so she can see it herself. He draws her a bath on days when Ella is cranky and rubs her feet. He tries to show Leslie he cares even though he can’t say it. When they get the prints from the photographer he buys frames and hangs them on the stairwell. He puts himself, with Ella, up there and leaves the biggest frame empty. When she asks about it he wraps his arms around her waist and says, “That’s for a picture of the three of us. I thought we’d call the photographer and have her come back out and take it.”  
  
Leslie draws a tight smile and kisses him on the lips, “I’m not mad about that. I already said that I understand.”  
  
The next morning, when he wakes up, the empty frame is gone and the gallery wall rehung to cover up the space.  
  
It only makes him feel more like a heel.  
  
And so he lingers in that silver morning light; he lets the shadowy feeling envelop him and he tries to figure out what the hell is wrong with him. Every other moment of his day is full: full with Ella and work and Leslie. He laughs and smiles and on the surface is genuinely happy. But in those morning moments before the light turns to sunshine Ben has to admit to himself that it isn’t Leslie who he doesn’t trust. It’s himself.  
  
***  
  
“Ben?”  
  
“Hey there!” Ben tucks the phone under his chin as he reaches into the car to pull out his briefcase, groceries, and flowers he bought for Leslie.  
  
He’s tired. Ron left on some hunting vacation for three weeks and Tom decided that meant no one needed to work. He brought out a dating game show idea he has and  to appease him and get everyone back to work Ben spent much of the day pretending he was dating Chris (who thought the whole thing was some sort of new recreation class).  
  
But it is Becca, his half-sister, on the phone. Frankly, he’s surprised she’s calling him. They email at least once a week—he sends pictures of Ella and stories about Pawnee (Becca thinks Tom and Jean Ralphio sound cool; Ben tells her they got run over by a Lexus but he doesn’t think she believes him) and she fills him in on more high school drama than he’d care to know. But she always makes him smile.  
  
Except now she doesn’t sound happy.  
  
“Ben, why didn’t you tell Daddy about Leslie?”  
  
He stops in the middle of the yard, “What?”  
  
“You never told Daddy about Leslie,” she repeats, “And I mentioned something at dinner last night and he got really upset. You know how he gets - he mumbles and does weird things. Last night he took his shoes off and just held them. How could you not tell him?”  
  
“Why would I?”  
  
Ben can almost hear her roll her eyes, “Because you’re going to marry her and he might want to know that.”  
  
“Becca,” Ben sighs, “I don’t have a relationship with our father.”  
  
“That’s bullshit.”  
  
Ben frowns, “I think I should be telling you not to swear…”  
  
“Ugh,” Becca says, “you’re such a square sometimes Ben. Stay on the topic.”  
  
“Which is?”  
  
“Why didn’t you tell Dad about Leslie?”  
  
“Because I don’t care to have him know anything about me or my life.”  
  
“Well that’s dumb.”  
  
Ben drops his briefcase and the groceries onto the front step and sits down with the flowers still under his arm, “Becca, listen it’s complicated.”  
  
“Well uncomplicate it!” She is yelling so loudly that Ben has to hold the phone away from his ear, “He’s your family Ben. He’s my family. Our father. You’re not going to just leave him, are you? I mean that’s why you hate him isn’t it? Cause he left you and Jenny and your mom to be with my mom. Are you really going to do the same thing to him? He’s an old man now and he’s sorry and he wants a relationship with his son,” She’s crying now and Ben closes his eyes, “I didn’t tell him about Ella. I couldn’t, not after watching that. It was like he went from capable human being to human disaster in a matter of minutes. He thought you guys were on the mend.”  
  
Well, then he was more thick headed than Ben had previously thought. But he doesn’t say this to Becca. He can’t. Instead, he stands up and turns around.  
  
Leslie is standing on the porch, having slipped out the front door unnoticed. She has Ella in the crook of her arm and her forehead is creased with concern. Ben swallows and shrugs. She mouths, “I’m sorry.”  
  
“Becca,” he keeps his voice even, “it’s not that simple. Relationships between adults are complicated.” He looks at Leslie as he says it.  
  
“Don’t pull the adult card on me Ben. I’m seventeen and I’m not stupid. You’re so angry at him that the only way he’ll ever redeem himself is to have never let you down in the first place and that isn’t possible. He can’t undo what he did. He’s apologized and explained and proven himself to you in every way he knows how. It’s time to get off your high horse and forgive him.”  
  
And then the line goes dead. He closes his eyes and drops his chin to his chest. He stands there until he feels Leslie’s hand on his upper arm. Her hand drops and she entwines her fingers through his, “Come on. Let’s go inside and I’ll order Chinese.” She tugs and he follows.  
  
He is still holding the flowers and he thrusts them toward her, “I’d planned on this really nice night for us…”  
  
She takes them, smells them, and wrinkles her nose, “We can still salvage it. Come on.”  
  
She turns with Ella in one arm and the flowers in the other; the pinkish light from the setting sun hits her on the threshold of their home and Ben is overwhelmed with the thought, how could he not be in love with this woman?  
  
***  
  
Ben starts getting up in the dark, at 4:30 a.m., every morning just to avoid that damn light. He surprises Leslie the first morning when she stumbles down stairs in her robe and he has coffee and whipped cream waiting for her at the dining room table.  
  
“You’re up?” she blinks.  
  
“Couldn’t sleep,” he shrugs.  
  
They work side by side, elbows rubbing, and sometimes he cranes his neck to see what plans she is making. There are plans to build an outdoor amphitheater in one of the parks and to host a fall symphony series for elementary school children. She has redrawn zoning codes to encourage a revitalization of downtown small businesses and started to research ways to modernize the waste system. Ben watches her work, bent over her notes and printed off research, and is struck by how far she’s come since they met a year ago. The essential Leslie is still there with the burgeoning smile that makes him believe in unicorns and hope and other nonsensical things, but she is more informed and practiced in her ideas.  
  
And it strikes him how little traction he’s made.  
  
He started getting up in the dark to avoid those desperate, dissatisfied thoughts, but they follow him. They are no longer patient enough to just those few first minutes of the day. No, they dog him through work, story time with Ella, and when he holds Leslie before they fall asleep. Sometimes she’ll catch his mind drifting off and she touches him so gently it’s as if she’s afraid he’ll break.  
  
“Hey, come back to me,” she always says and when he looks at her he can see her worry.  
  
“Just thinking,” he explains. And her nod is always tiny, barely perceptible. She doesn’t push or ask for explanation. It’s as if she understands he needs the space.  
  
And quietly, in that space, the words finally bubble up from inside Ben. It doesn’t come at some profound moment, but in the most ordinary time.  
  
He is sitting at the shoe shine listening to Andy talk about some weird game he and April play with the vacuum cleaner and stuffed crows when he stops him and asks, “Andy, how can you be so happy?”  
  
Andy shrugs, “I dunno man; it’s not that bad. I mean a year ago I lived in a pit. Now I’ve got a job and a kick-ass wife and my band is so good.” Andy straightens, “When life gives you lemons make lemonade. I read that once on a can of lemonade and I like to think that it applies to life.”  
  
And Ben realizes he has no idea if he believes that’s really true.  
  
***  
  
“Is this Leslie Knope?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Hello, my name is William Barnes. I am…”  
  
“I know who you are.”  
  
“Then you know why I am calling?”  
  
“I think…maybe…I hope.”  
  
“Can we have lunch next week? There are some things I want to discuss with you…”

***

Looking back, Leslie’s pretty sure if Ann wasn’t crying every other day and Ron wasn’t still on vacation one of them would have spoken up sooner, but it’s okay because Chris does in their stead.  
  
“Leslie Knope, just the person I’ve been wanting to see…” Chris slows his jog in front of the park bench she is sitting on. Ella sleeps in her stroller and Leslie finds herself leafing aimlessly through her favorite Eleanor Roosevelt biography as if looking for inspiration about what to do about William Barnes.  
  
“Chris, what are you doing here?”  
  
He is still running in place, “I wanted to talk to you and when you weren’t home I figured I would run through all the parks in Pawnee until I found you and look here you are!”  
  
“Here I am…” she eyes him, “do you want to sit down?”  
  
“In a minute. I have to cool down my body if I’m not going to cramp.”  
  
Leslie frowns. Friend or not, he is still incredibly weird. “How’s Ann today?”    
  
“Today is a good one. It was good for her to have that girls night last night,” he says between breaths, “She came home laughing and went for a run with me this morning. She’s starting to look forward to the wedding now that it’s just a week away. At least I hope she is...”  
  
He stops running and begins doing lunges back and forth in front of the bench.  
  
“Chris, you know this isn’t about you right? She’s just mourning the possibility of something. It’ll pass.”  
  
He stills and looks away towards someplace else in the park, “After a while you want to say aren’t I enough? Aren’t we enough? You know?”  
  
Leslie does know. She is tempted daily with Ben, to shake him and shout the same thing.  
  
Chris exhales and looks back at Leslie, “But me and Ann, we’re for forever and this is just one part of that so I know we’ll be okay,” he straightens out of the lunge and finally sits down next to Leslie, “But you, Leslie Knope, I am concerned about.”  
  
Leslie sits up straight, “What do you mean?”  
  
“About you and Ben…”  
  
Leslie forces a laugh, “You don’t need to worry about me and Ben. Why? What has Ann said? Has Ann said something?”  
  
Chris shakes his head and leans his arm on the back of the bench, “No, Ann hasn’t said anything.”  
  
“Ohhhh,” Leslie curves herself over her knees and lets her head drop into her hands, “it’s that obvious?”  
  
“Leslie, what are you doing?”  
  
“I don’t know what else to do,” she sits up and falls back against the bench. She looks straight ahead and can feel Chris’ gaze fall on her profile. “He’s hurting,” she says.  
  
“That doesn’t give him the right to hurt you in the process.”  
  
She looks at Chris, “I don’t want to lose him.”  
  
“Leslie, you’re not the type of woman who holds onto a man in hopes that he might someday love her.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“Then why are you putting up with it?”  
  
“Cause it’s Ben.”  
  
Chris nods slowly and exhales, “You know everyone thinks I don’t notice things.”  
  
“I know you do.”  
  
He holds up a finger, “But you didn’t always think that,” Leslie smiles and Chris lets out a breath, “Yeah, that’s one of the first things I noticed about Ann. She didn’t assume when it came to me. But we're not talking about me. We're talking about Ben.”  
  
“Yeah, we are.”  
  
Chris puts his hands together, “Did Ben ever tell you why he became a state auditor?”  
  
“He wanted to prove himself responsible so he could run for office.”  
  
“But why the state auditor’s office?” Chris waits a beat, “His dad is a CPA. He had a firm back in Partridge. He always wanted Ben to become an accountant and join the firm.”  
  
“But he didn’t…”  
  
“But he did become an accountant,” Chris says, “despite everything that happened between him and his dad he still followed through with the dream his father had for him.”  
  
Leslie cocks her head, “How do you know about Ben and his dad?”  
  
Chris sighs, “One night a few years ago Ben got really drunk. It was some girl. She thought they were going to get married and he broke up with her and it got to him more than it usually did. He drinks a lot and he starts talking. Tells me about Jenny and his parents. And then he starts going on about how lonely he is and how much he just wants-,” Chris smiles wryly, “it’s kind of ironic cause he doesn’t remember telling me this stuff. I made sure he drank lots of water; hydration is key to preventing a hangover. When he didn’t have one he never realized how much he told me, isn’t that ironic?”  
  
“Chris, you’re not making sense…”  
  
“Ben doesn’t know what he wants. He’s never known,” Chris leans back, “That night he kept talking about how much he really wants…and then he’d just start laughing. It was like he couldn’t find the words.”  
  
“Jenny dared him to run for mayor. Karla got him the job in D.C.. You offered him the job here in Pawnee...his life, but everyone else's decisions...,” she stands up.  
  
“I don’t think Ben is even fully aware of it. He wants so badly for those he cares about to be happy that he’s never really gone after what  _he_  wants. That is until you.”  
  
Leslie whirls around, “What?”  
  
Chris smiles, “I knew it that first day we all met. He was watching you and I’d never seen him,” Chris snaps his fingers trying to put it into words, “so affected. He couldn’t stop looking at you. So I took Ron out for a drink. I thought I’d leave you two alone, but when I saw him later he said you were a pain-in-the-ass and I thought maybe I was just making it up," he shrugs, "And then that night at the Snakehole he was looking at you again and so I went with Ann so you two could be alone. You got under his skin and," he points at her, "I knew you were different for him. Pawnee was different for him. It got under his skin. He started coming up with these ideas to help rebuild and he’d never done anything like that before. But there was Karla and you were so determined to just be friends. I really didn’t think he had it in him.”  
  
“To do what?”  
  
“To go after you. To win you over.”  
  
The feminist in Leslie recoils, “I’m not a prize.”  
  
Chris stands up, “But you are still the woman he loves.”  
  
Leslie looks over at Ella sleeping in the stroller. She thinks of what she wants for her daughter; there is so much and a happy home and family is right there at the top of the list. But more than that, Leslie wants to Ella to know how to be true to herself. She wants her to be strong and to believe in herself. She thinks about how desperately she has tried to get Ben to trust her or love her. She doesn’t even know what to call it anymore, but she knows she can’t keep waiting. Not like this.  
  
“But he didn’t go after me,” she looks back at Chris and shrugs, “he’s let me put myself out there and take all the blame for what happened between us when it wasn’t all my fault. It was just as much his fault.”  
  
“Good men can be assholes too sometimes,” Chris puts his hands on Leslie's shoulder, “especially when it comes to the women we love. We need them to remember we’re still good men, but that doesn’t mean they have to put up with it.”  
  
Leslie reaches up on her tiptoes and kisses Chris on the cheek. She cocks her head and says, “Don’t take this the wrong way Chris, but I think this the first time since I met you that I’m really, really glad you’re marrying my best friend.”  
  
***  
  
The week Ann Perkins marries Chris Traeger almost kills Leslie Knope, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves here.  
  
It starts with the discovery that Ron is seeing someone. He comes back from vacation dressed like Tiger Woods and everyone knows that means Ron’s had sex. He won’t fess up who it is and the whole department spends the whole week trying to figure it out which Tammy it is and that leaves Leslie and Ben to pick up the slack.  
  
Of course Leslie isn’t even supposed to be at City Hall, but she is ready to go stir crazy at home with only her meeting with William Barnes to think about. They are set for lunch on Thursday. Leslie hasn’t told Ben about it because she isn’t sure how she is going to tell him so that he actually listens to all of her reasons.  
  
When she isn’t at City Hall she is working on finishing the butcher paper. Chris’ words resonate in the back of her mind and she agrees Ben doesn’t know what he wants, but she’s sure what he wants is her and Ella. He wants to be a family. At least, she tells herself that’s what he wants whenever the fear wells up in her, threatens to overwhelm her. So she makes her plans. She is going to finish this last part of her project and show it to him Thursday night. She is going to let Ben into the most vulnerable time of her life and tell him about her meeting with Barnes and if after all that he still doesn’t choose her then she is done. She can’t keep doing this.  
  
It is also the week Jenny moves to Pawnee.  
  
And the one Tom decides to quit and Andy and April get married in an impromptu ceremony in which Ella is the ring bear ( _April’s gay boyfriend and her gay boyfriend’s boyfriend claim the role of flower girls_ ).  
  
So yeah, it’s kind of a busy week.  
  
So when Leslie gets to Thursday morning she’s not really nervous as much as she is tired. She finished the butcher paper sheets yesterday and spent the night color coding her planner with the weekend’s schedule. She inks in Ella’s feedings and Ann’s wedding tea and the meeting with William Barnes.  
  
Ben will leave for work the same time she leaves for the tea and while she is at her lunch with William Ann has volunteered to hang the butcher paper for her. Marlene is happy to watch her granddaughter for a few hours and Leslie has planned to be gone when Ben comes home from work. He’ll find the butcher paper and by the time he is done Leslie will come back with dinner from JJ’s and they’ll sit on the porch and talk. And everything will work out. She is almost willing it to be true. She wants this to work out so badly.  
  
It’s too much to write in her planner so she X’s out the whole night in green and just writes Tell Ben. Just as she finishes she hears Ben getting up and in her panic she shoves the planner under the couch cushions.  
  
In fact, she is so tired that when she leaves with Ella to go to Ann’s tea she forgets her planner entirely.  
  
***  
  
It’s been a weird week for Ben too. He and Leslie are like two ships passing in the night between caring for Ella, work, and getting ready for Ann and Chris’ wedding. Chris asks him to throw him a bachelor party which Ben finds awkward. Tom takes charge and they go to the Glitter Factory. Chris thinks stripping is empowering and gets up on stage with the women and does all sorts of things Ben wishes he could forget…  
  
Then there is the mundane task of getting his apartment ready for Jenny until she can find a place of her own and the astronomical task of trying to figure out what the hell he was doing with his life.  
  
So on Thursday morning when Ben can’t concentrate at work he decides he’s earned a day off.  
  
He knows Leslie has Ann’s tea and then lunch with someone at JJ’s. He tries to remember who, but he can’t. He’s sure she mentioned it. It’s probably something to do with the wedding. Leslie’s been working herself to the bone trying to be there for Ann. He isn’t sure what it is, but he knows she’s been up every night this week making some sort of present for Ann. Tomorrow is the rehearsal dinner and Leslie is going to spend the night with Ann ( _and Ella_ ) at a spa just outside Pawnee. It’ll be the first night since he’s been back to Pawnee that he’s spent away from Leslie, away from Ella, and he is dreading it.  
  
Ben presses his palms to his eyes and rubs them. He’s exhausted. Maybe he’ll go home and take a nap and maybe catch Leslie after her lunch. Maybe they could take Ella to the park; maybe they could get some time together just the three of them. He misses that…  
  
When gets home he stretches out on the couch and exhales. He isn’t quite comfortable so he shifts around until something pokes him in the back. He reaches under the cushion and pulls out Leslie’s planner. He frowns. Leslie never leaves her planner behind. She’s probably going crazy looking for it. He checks his watch. She’ll still be at that lunch. Curious he flips open to today to see who it is she is having lunch with and when Ben sees the name he jumps off the couch and is running out the door before he can think a coherent thought.  
  
***  
  
Leslie smoothes out imaginary wrinkles on her pants as William Barnes is talking about the Harvest Festival and her work with the EBTF. He says Chris Traeger was the one who brought her name to his attention and her head snaps up.  
  
“Chris gave you my name?”  
  
“Yes, he did a few weeks ago. Said you’d make an amazing elected official. He said it is something you want.”  
  
“It is…” she trails off. He’d already put her name in when he talked to her in the park. He’d told her to stop waiting for Ben. Had this been why?  
  
“Leslie, this is something you want, right?”  
  
“What?” She snaps back, “I’m sorry. I’m just nervous.”  
  
William Barnes smiles, “That’s fine. It’ll settle in eventually what you’re about to do.”  
  
She lays both hands flat on the table and exhales, “I hope so because I’ve wanted this for so long and I thought it was everything, you know, to hold public office.”  
  
William smiles, “It is. You’ll be a great candidate. It’s something new for Pawnee, a single mother as a council woman, but who thought we’d elect a Black president? It’s the modern age and old political tropes don’t cut it. We’re going to redefine Pawnee politician with you. The voters will love that you’re a woman and the fact that you’re a mother will garner the sympathy vote. You’ll be the face of the modern woman in Pawnee. ”  
  
Something twitches in Leslie’s cheek, “What about my qualifications?”  
  
William shifts in his seat, “Your qualifications?”  
  
“Yeah,” Leslie leans an elbow on the table, “Certainly you don’t want me just because I have a vagina and working womb?”  
  
William Barnes laughs nervously,“Well, of course. I mean you’ve worked in government for years and we can fill in any other holes by playing up your passion and dedication.”  
  
Leslie sits back and nods, “Yeah, that’s really clever, but see I don’t want to be that candidate. I’m not going to pigeon holed into a stereotype no matter how modern and clever you think it is. I want to stand on my experience and good ideas. It isn’t enough to just be passionate; this serious work and what we do matters. We need smart people at the table and I know I can be one of those people, but I’m not going to pretend I’m ready when I’m not. ”  
  
William narrows his eyes, “Are you turning this down?”  
  
Leslie laughs, “Yeah I am. Actually I was going to turn you down no matter what, but you’ve made this so much easier,” she leans across the table, “See, I don’t think I’m ready. I want to go back to my job and learn more about running a city. I want to be there when my daughter takes her first steps. I don’t want to be going door to door trying to garner the sympathy vote for being a mother before I actually get to be one. I want to do this right.”  
  
William purses his lips, “I didn’t peg you for one of those women who gives up her entire life to throw elaborate birthday parties for toddlers and sit in the pick-up line at school. I thought you had more gumption.”  
  
“Oh, you haven’t even begun to see my gumption,” Leslie scoots out of the booth and stands at the end of the table, “I am going to run for office someday, but it will be on my terms. See the thing you didn’t realize is that your modern woman candidate wants it all and she’s going to get it. She just doesn’t need you to do it.”  
  
***  
  
Leslie admits she might have been a bit over dramatic toward the end, but she feels elation as she walks out of JJ’s and toward her car. She is unlocking her door and takes the moment to let out a squeal so she doesn’t see Ben who is walking toward her.  
  
“What was that?”  
  
Leslie’s hand freezes on the door handle, “What are you doing here?”  
  
Ben holds up her planner and it sinks in what he is thinking. He knows who William Barnes is, what he represents, and Ben thinks she’s kept it from him. He thinks she’s gone ahead without him, without talking to him, and for half-a-second Leslie can see why he is mad. She can feel his devastation, but in the second beat of that moment Leslie finds her voice.  
  
Ben rounds the car and stands two feet from her, “How could you do this to me? To us? After the past two months how could you just throw it all away?”  
  
Leslie drops her purse onto the hood of the car and advances towards him, “What did I do to you Ben?”  
  
Ben tugs on his hair, “Jesus, Leslie all I needed from you was a say in your life and you went ahead without me. Again.”  
  
Leslie snorts, “You’re such a hypocrite.”  
  
“Me?”  
  
“Yes, you! You say you can’t trust me, but this doesn’t have anything to do with trust,” she is shouting now. People in the parking lot are staring. William Barnes is staring, but she doesn’t care. She pokes a finger into Ben’s chest, “Do you love me?”  
  
“What? How can you ask that?”  
  
“Do you love me?”  
  
His eyes narrow, “I’m not going to be pushed into a corner.”  
  
“Admit it, you don’t know what you want. Admit that you’re scared stupid because all of a sudden you get to make a choice and you don’t know how to make it. This has nothing to do with trusting me, Ben. All those months you could have easily picked up the phone. You knew where I was the entire time. I was the one who went after you. I went to your freaking home town,” she trembles, “I wrote you every day because I missed you so much it hurt. I literally hurt when I thought about you but I couldn’t find you. But at least I fought for you. I didn’t give up and I did everything I could to find you. But you…”  
  
“Leslie,” he says her name low, rough and she shakes her head no.  
  
“You didn’t fight for us. You gave up. Why? Why did you do that?”  
  
“I don’t know,” he closes his eyes, “I don’t know.”  
  
She covers her mouth with a hand and feels her fingers trembling, her whole body shake, “I think it’s cause you don’t love me. I think you want to. We have a daughter together and I’m your best friend, but I think you want to love me and just can’t.”  
  
“Leslie, that’s not true.”  
  
She raises her chin, “Then tell me you love me.”  
  
Tears well up in his eyes, “Don’t do this. Not now.”  
  
Leslie bites down so hard on her lower lip she thinks she might draw blood, but it is the only way to keep herself from shaking.  
  
She can’t do this any more. She’s fought as hard as she could, but the only thing to do now is to let him go. To give him the freedom he needs to figure out who he actually is.  
  
She lays both palms on Ben’s chest. She can feel his heart hammering beneath her touch and for a moment she just stands there to soak up the memory, but then she exhales and says with more composure than she really has, “I’m going to pick up Ella from my mother’s house and I’m going to stay with Ann tonight. When I come back in the morning I want you out.”  
  
***  
  
Ben’s not sure how he gets home, but he sits for a very long time on the front porch. He keeps seeing Leslie’s eyes, feeling her tremble, and hearing her voice say those words, “I want you out” over and over again. Vaguely he thinks there is rum in the kitchen and that is why he finally stands up and walks inside.  
  
Except when he gets inside he forgets about the rum. He forgets about everything except what is in front of him.  
  
Tacked to every available wall space are rows and rows of butcher paper. And that butcher paper is covered in the loopy scrawl of Leslie Knope.  
  
The door swings shut and the slam startles him. He turns around and finds it is covered too and there is a post-it stuck to this one with a number one written on it.  _Start here_ , it says.  
  
It doesn’t take Ben long to figure out what this is. Leslie said she wrote to him every day. This is what she wrote. The entries are dated and as he moves from the second to the third sheets he realizes that they cover every day he was gone. This is the last part of her plan, he knows it. This is the last part of herself she can give to him to show him she has changed and he ruined it.  
  
What happens Ben will later describe as the most important hour of his life.  
  
It takes more than an hour really. It takes most of the night, but time doesn’t seem important.  
  
Ben stands in front of each panel and reads the words once, twice, sometimes three times. He laughs when Leslie tells him about seeing Chris in his underwear and the lump in his throat gets bigger as she tries to figure out why he is still gone. He can see her sitting in the park, in bed, at her desk, and every other place from where she writes to him. He imagines the different blazers she chose for each day and when the entries are sad he wishes he could have been there to hold her. Ben is enveloped in Leslie, in her words to him, and all stray thoughts and fears fall away.  
  
And then she tells him about that day on the swings.  
  
 _Have you ever seen a choice so clearly before you? It’s like morning light filtering through curtains. It’s not sunshine, that kind of antiseptic, scrubbed clean light. No, morning light still has a hint of night; there is shadow to it. It’s more complicated than sunshine and for me that’s you. You are like that morning light; you have that hint of grey to you. We can’t always live off of sunshine and sugar, can we? You taught me that. The world is harsher than we’d like, but  the dawn still comes. Morning light carries just as much hope as it does leftover shadow. It keeps coming back each morning, drawing us from sleep, reminding us to try again. That’s what this choice feels like for me: it keeps coming around no matter how many times I want to try to do it on my own. I keep coming back to you just like that damn light keeps sneaking into my room each morning.  
  
So I chose you and I will continue to chose you, over and over. I just hope someday I get to tell you that._  
  
Something shifts beneath Ben’s feet and he can see it. It’s like a long wave coming to shore. He has a choice and he knows what his choice is. It comes upon him from a long horizon — a fact, like an old friend, that he can see coming from a long way off. It isn’t a surprise because it’s been there the whole time. It just took him a damn long time to catch up.  
  
He wants to be Ella’s father.  
  
He wants to be a father to a whole bunch of little girls just like Ella.  They’ll all have big blue eyes and an irrepressible smile.  
  
He doesn’t want to work with numbers anymore.  He wants to pitch the ideas and run a team of people whose job it is to put on children’s concerts and build parks. And maybe someday he wants to run for office. But more than that he wants to be part of something bigger than himself.  
  
He wants to make Chris his friend, his real friend, and maybe even Ron. He wants to be like Andy and believe that maybe that saying about lemons applies to life too.  
  
And he might even want to stop carrying around the hate toward his father and guilt about his mother.  
  
But all those things come from a single choice: Leslie. She is the one part that makes every other choice possible. She is sunshine and smiles, speeches and substance. Ben is aware the metaphor is odd, but Leslie is a flu ridden Michael Jordan at the ’97 NBA finals. She is a Kirk Gibson hobbling up to the plate and hitting a homer off of Dennis Eckersly. She is Leslie Knope and she is his happy ending.     
  
And  Ben Wyatt finally understands what his mother meant when she said you can’t ever get back a first impression.  
  
Somewhere along the way, Ben had given himself the impression that he didn’t have a choice — that he was bound to a stunted life where it was about other people’s choices and not his own. He didn’t do it on purpose, he did it because he cared, but it had almost cost him everything.  
  
But then he’d met Leslie. He’d tripped over her. For the first time in his life, Ben had found something, someone, that he wanted. He could point to her and say, “Right there, there in front of me is my future.” She’d been a pain-in-the-ass, obtuse, and unavailable, but he fought for her. Since that first fight, he’d been fighting for her. He finally understand, too, why his mother was always telling him to stand up straight and smile. You can’t get back a first impression, but you can choose not to accept it. You can look the person in the eye and dare them to take a second look. You can with confidence because you know who you are. You don’t have to be Ice Town or the guy with the messed up family or the numbers robot.    
  
There is always another choice.  
  
***  
  
Ben finishes reading the butcher paper at 3:00 a.m. The trail of paper ends in Leslie’s bedroom with his own hand writing on a very familiar piece of butcher paper. Ben can’t help but smile and rub his jaw. There is a neon yellow post-it note with an arrow pointing to his own check list and the only thing left undone:  
  
 _Tell Leslie how I feel._  
  
The arrow is a not-so-subtle reminder. Under the arrow is Ann’s hand writing:  _Like a feral pig_.  
  
Obviously she’s talked to Ron.  
  
But Ben doesn’t need a reminder. He knows exactly what he needs to do and how he wants to do it.  
  
He checks his watch. Chris will be up in an hour for his morning run and Jenny will be getting off a plane a few hours after that. If he’s going to pull this off he’s going to need their help.  
  
***  
  
“Leslie, are you sure you’re okay?” Ann bends down as much as her dress allows.  
  
“What?” Leslie breaks her blank stare. Ann looks so beautiful and it is Saturday morning, her wedding day, and all Leslie can think about is Ben. She wonders where he is and what he is thinking. He didn’t come to the rehearsal dinner last night and she hasn’t been able to bring herself to go home since Thursday. Chris went to her house yesterday afternoon and collected Leslie’s dress and everything she needed for Ella. He said Ben had cleaned out his dresser and bathroom. It took everything in Leslie not to go and find him, to beg him to come home, to settle for whatever it was they’d had.  
  
And when Ann should have been sleeping the night before her wedding, her best friend curled up next to Leslie in their hotel room, and they watched Independence Day because it was on television.  
  
“You should marry Bill Pullman. He’s already president,” Ann laid a head on Leslie’s shoulder.  
  
“He’s even single,” Leslie said, “And he’s got great hair. I miss that 90’s floppy hair on men. Ben’s hair was always so…” she trailed off.  
  
“Don’t do that to yourself,” Ann said, “Ben’s got great hair and you know it. Focus on how pale and wiry he is. It’s much more satisfying.”  
  
“Yeah, I know.”  
  
“Leslie?”  
  
It’s Ann dragging Leslie back to the present. She’s frowning at her.  
  
“I’m fine,” she shouts it. The other bridesmaids scowl in their direction. They think Leslie is being selfish; Leslie agrees with them.  
  
Ann lays her palms on Leslie’s shoulders, “He’s a dumb ass. Let’s just get through today and then you, me, and Ella are going on a road trip. We’ll go to D.C. or the beach or the mountains. Wherever you want to go, we’ll do it.”  
  
“But your honeymoon…”  
  
“It's Chris’ idea. He says we’ll go another time and he’s right.” She smiles, “besides you were my best friend before he was my husband.”    
  
Leslie can feel the tears welling up, but she wills them away. She bites down on her lip and nods. Ann hugs her and someone calls her name.  
  
“Go,” Leslie squeezes her hand, “it’s your day.”  
  
Ann goes but not before looking over her shoulder at Leslie. Leslie waves her on, exhales, and stands to go find her daughter.  
  
***  
  
Ben doesn’t go to the ceremony.  
  
He’s too nervous. Instead, he sits in his car.  
  
Jenny finds him there. She’s exiting the church, her heels slapping the pavement, when she sees Ben in his Saturn.  
  
She isn’t wearing her wig anymore and her hair has come back in. It is short in a pixie cut that highlights her cheek bones and frames her face in a way that even stuns Ben who is used to looking at her. She arrived yesterday, fresh off the plane from Colorado or Montana, Ben doesn’t really remember where she went. He only knows his sister looks more alive than he’s seen her in years. Her cheeks flush and her tiny frame carries more weight. And she is full of stories about Dude Ranches and fresh mountain springs.  
  
“Ben, the air is so pure and fresh. And the fields of wild flowers! Oh-my-gosh, we laid in them at night and looked up at the stars and he told me how the constellations got their names…”  
  
“He?”  
  
She skittered “Just a guy I met out there. No one really.”  
  
In his hurry to fill her in, Ben doesn’t push. Instead, he tells her everything and to her credit, Jenny says nothing until he’s done. She asks what he needs from her and when he tells her her eyes fill up with tears.  
  
Now, she raps on his window and startles him.  
  
“Jesus, Jen!” Other people are streaming out of the church and he hunkers down in his seat. He doesn’t want anyone to see him until it is time. Also, he’s more than a little afraid of Ann and Ron.  
  
“Aren’t you supposed to be at the reception site?” she hisses.  
  
“I just wanted to see if I could see her,” Ben says.  
  
Jenny rolls her eyes, “I don’t know why you have to do it this way.”  
  
“Because Leslie loves big gestures.”  
  
“Well, she’s in the minority then,” Jenny mutters and looks back over her shoulder at the crowd of people.  
  
Ben sees Ron staring hard in their direction and hisses for Jenny to get in the car.  
  
“Gladly,” she says, never tearing her eyes away from the church.  
  
***  
  
Leslie wrings her hands. From her carrier, Ella kicks her feet and giggles.  
  
“Traitor,” Leslie mutters.  
  
She is pacing in the ladies lounge. She escaped in here under the pretense of nursing Ella, but she’s spent most of dinner hiding out.  
  
“What is mommy going to do?” she hovers over Ella. Her daughter blows a raspberry and Leslie melts down onto the couch next to her. The notebook she’d been using slips off the couch and onto the floor. Leslie doesn’t bother to pick it up.  
  
 She forgot about the maid-of-honor speech. How could she forget? Leslie was never going to forgive herself if she didn’t deliver the best speech ever. This was the one thing she could do for Ann today and she’s going to blow it.  
  
She could write a rap…but she didn’t know how well that would go over since she wouldn’t have time rehearse with the band.  
  
She could try a poem or a cheer, but she wasn’t good with rhymes.  
  
She could…no, she has no idea what to say other than to stand up there and tell everyone about her beautiful and wonderful best friend. If she had the time, she’d tell everyone how Ann stood by her over the past year, how she helped Leslie face things she was afraid to face, and even now on her wedding day she is still the best friend any one could hope to have. And Chris…she wants everyone to know how she cried when she heard Chris might propose, but how he coached her through her pregnancy, won her over, and became one of her closest friends. And to Chris and Ann she wants to tell them to hold onto the other, to be grateful, and to know the world is better off with the two of them together.  
  
She wants to say all that, but how can she say it plainly so everyone understands just how important these two people are, how much they deserve every happiness life affords them?  
  
“Leslie…”  
  
It’s Ann. She sneaks into the room and leans back against the door.  
  
“Ann, you should be out there.”  
  
“I don’t like all the attention,” Ann confesses, “There are all these people from Indianapolis and they keep telling me how lucky I am to have Chris…”  
  
“Chris is lucky to have you.”  
  
Ann tips her head sideways, “Leslie that’s so sweet. Thank you.”  
  
“Seriously though, what are you doing in here?”  
  
Ann exhales, “I don’t want you to freak out but,” she digs through the little clutch she’s been carrying around all day and pulls out something white and plastic “I need you to hold up my dress so I can pee on this pregnancy test.”  
  
“Ann...”  
  
Her friend’s face breaks out in a grin, “I might be. I’m three days late.”  
  
“Does Chris know?”  
  
Ann shakes her head, “No. I thought I’d wait until it was a sure thing.”  
  
Leslie stands up, “You’re definitely going on your honeymoon now.”  
  
Ann hesitates, “You’re going to be okay?”  
  
“Phsh,” Leslie scoffs, “I’m more than okay. I’ve got you as my best friend.”  
  
***  
  
When Ben enters the dance hall he sees Leslie before she sees him. She is sitting at the head table next to Ann and the two of them are telling Chris something whose face breaks out in a grin. He hugs Ann and then Leslie and Ben isn’t sure, but he thinks his old partner is crying.  
  
Ben stuffs his hands into his pockets and rocks on his heels.  
  
Yeah, this is going to be harder than he thought it would be.  
  
The Parks department has a table near the front, but otherwise he doesn’t know a soul in this room. So many pairs of eyes to stare and mouths to whisper…but, he reminds himself, this is for Leslie. Not him.  
  
He watches her from the back of the room. Ann chose simple black dresses for her bridesmaids (something about the dye being environmentally sound) and he likes it on Leslie. It lets all her beautiful features stand out: her pretty blond hair and bright blue eyes and that great, great smile…a smile he can get lost in. He exhales. Yeah, he really hopes she forgives him for being a fuck-tard cause he’s not sure how he’ll make it out of the room otherwise.  
  
“It’s almost time,” Jenny sidles up to him and knocks his shoulder with his, “you ready?”  
  
“Go big or go home, right?”  
  
“Fuck yeah, boy-mayor,” she smiles at her favorite pet name for him. They stand there, side by side, and Ben struck by how much he loves his sister. He’s about to turn to to her and, well, thank her, when Ron comes up along Ben’s other side. He’s swirling whiskey and eating a deviled egg (which Ben is pretty sure he brought on his own).  
  
“Benjamin, Jennifer,” he nods to both of them.  
  
“Ronald,” Jenny dips her head.  
  
Ben frowns and it takes a few seconds than he’d care to admit to put two and two together. The coincidental vacation, sudden move to Pawnee…heck, Jenny even pulled a flannel shirt out of her suitcase. It all adds up to a single, irrevocable fact that Ben blurts out before he can help it.  
  
“Oh. My. God. You. Are. Sleeping. With. My. Sister!”  
  
Jenny grits her teeth and Ron says quietly, very quietly, “Yes, yes I am.”  
  
Ben looks at Jenny and she rolls her eyes, “What? You think just cause I have cancer I’m not a grown woman? I have a limbido.”  
  
“Stop,” Ben covers his ears, “I don’t want to hear about you having sex with my boss.”  
  
“Actually, it is more like making love,” Ron swills his whiskey and sips it.  
  
Jenny draws a sharp breath, “Ron Swanson, did you just say you love me?”  
  
He arches an eyebrow toward her, “Yes, yes I did.”  
  
“Stop,” Ben waves his arms, “that’s not what he said at all. Can we get back to when this started? Did you move here to be with him? I mean, seriously, how could you not tell me?”  
  
“Ben, shut up,”  She’s elbowed past Ben and is standing in front of Ron, staring him in the eye, “So you’re done trying to pretend this isn’t what this is? You’re going to man up and admit that I’m it for you and you’re it for me. None of this crap about me being sick and you having all these ex-wives, right?”  
  
Ron stares at her for a long time and Ben watches them with horror etched on his face. Finally Ron takes a final sip of his whiskey and hands the empty tumbler to Ben who takes it automatically.  
  
“Benjamin, good luck with your presentation. Jennifer told me what you are going to do and while I find such blatant expressions of emotion to chaff like leather chaps against my scrotum, I wish you luck.  Some of us prefer to leave our love making for more private quarters,” Ron crooks his elbow and Jenny’s face breaks out in a smile that Ben thinks might be the most beautiful he’s ever seen his sister look, “if you excuse us.”  
  
And Ben is alone. He stands back against the far wall, invisible in the crowd of people, but he finds Chris’ gaze from across the room. They exchange a subtle nod and Chris picks up his champagne glass, tapping the fork tines against crystal.  
  
***  
  
Leslie can feel Ben watching her.  
  
He’s staring really. It is frank and raw and it makes the back of her neck burn.  
  
She glances sideways at the Parks department table. April and Andy are trying to teach Ella the words to ‘Sex Hair’ despite Leslie insistence that babies don’t sing before they talk. Leslie is surprised Ben doesn’t make a beeline for Ella; surely that’s why he’s here. She’s surprised he’s gone almost forty-eight hours without seeing her. Maybe their break-up is harder on him than she first thought…  
  
Leslie makes herself reread her scribbled Maid-of-Honor speech because the alternative is to contemplate how she and Ben are going to handle Ella now. And she can’t think about that right now. It makes her sad.  
  
Chris’ best-man, a man named Chuck who climbs mountains and only wears clothes made from llama wool, finishes some sort of weird white man’s rap and Leslie is glad she took the straight forward approach.  
  
Her hands are sweating and she wipes them on her dress. It’s because of the speech and not Ben, right?  
  
Definitely the speech.  
  
Yeah, she’ll go with the speech.  
  
She’s looking down because if she looks up, if she meets Ben’s eye, she’ll combust.  
  
Chuck hands Leslie the microphone and in her hurry to stand up Leslie knocks over her water glass. The water runs over the front edge of the table and Leslie leans forward to mop it up and almost catches herself on fire from one of the votive candles.  
  
“Let me help you,” It’s Chris. He’s leaning over Ann with a napkin, but instead he grips Leslie’s arm and whispers in her ear, “You can do this.”  
  
She trembles an answer, straightens, smooths down her skirt, and takes the microphone in both hands so it doesn’t slip away.  
  
She can do this. Forget Ben and his smoldering looks. She’s freaking Leslie Knope…  
  
“Hello, my name is Leslie Knope and I am Ann Perkin’s best friend.”  
  
“Leslie.”  
  
Heads turn, but Leslie finds him first. Ben is standing at the back of the room with a microphone of his own.  
  
***  
  
Ben wishes a hole would open up and swallow him. Everyone is staring at him, but none of it is as scary as Leslie’s wild eyed stare. He’s never seen her eyes so wide and he thinks he sees her tremble.  
  
“Leslie,” he chews on his lip and meets her gaze head on. Electricity shoots through every never in his body and he says, “I’m sorry but I have something to say.”  
  
When everyone looks at her she continues to stare at him. Ann reaches for Leslie’s arm, but Chris stops her with a gentle touch, reassures her there is no need to intervene.  
  
“Leslie,” Ben says again, “is it alright if I say something first?”  
  
She nods, but her eyes don’t change. They just look and look and keep on looking at him. Her hands start to fall and Ben takes a step forward, “Don’t put the microphone down. I’m going to need you for this one.”  
  
He breaks his eyes away from her and looks at everyone else in the room, addresses them, “My name is Ben Wyatt and most of you probably don’t know me…”  
  
“Hey Ben!”  
  
It’s Andy and Ben waves to him as April tugs Andy’s arm down.  
  
“Um,” Ben lifts a hand up to his ear and drops it, “so like I said my name is Ben Wyatt and I have something to say to this woman,” he tips his head toward Leslie, “See um, we had something, something spectacular, something beyond every romantic comedy you’ve ever seen, and I was a moron and let it slip away. I didn’t fight for us, for her,” and he’s looking at her again, “but even when I walked away I couldn’t get away from her. I just kept tripping over her face.”  
  
A murmur ripples across the room, but Leslie stands resolute. She is unreadable and Ben doesn’t let himself think. He pushes forward.  
  
“So, ah,” he reaches into his pocket, sees Chris do the same, “I am here to state my case,” he swallows, “See when we first became friends Leslie had this thing she’d do. Whenever she wanted to know something we’d play a round of twenty questions so um, I wanted to do that and,” Ben can feel the heat running up his face and he forces himself to exhale, “and I was wondering if you’d play along, Leslie.”  
  
Chris leans across Ann and hands Leslie a piece of paper. Ben holds his breath as she takes it. She seems surprised, almost drained, but she takes the sheet and  turns it over twice in her hands. Ben waits, trying to see if she’ll give him any clue what she’s thinking, but she doesn’t and Ben holds the microphone up to his mouth, “You go first, Les.”  
  
She licks her lips and concentrates on the piece of paper, “What was your first impression of me?”  
  
“That you were a pain-in-the-ass,” he says and people mutter under their breath but Ben only has eyes for Leslie, “My turn, what did you think of me when we first met?”  
  
“I thought you were a fascist tard-ass.”  
  
Ben breaks out a grin. That’s his Leslie.  
  
“Good,” he says, “now your next question.”  
  
“Once we started working together, what was your impression then?” she reads.  
  
“I thought you were incredible. A little naive maybe, but you got Pawnee and local government in a way I didn’t. You understand the soul of this place.”  
  
“I just wanted to impress you,” she confesses.  
  
“And once we became friends?”  
  
“It was like Christmas morning every day,” she shrugs, “one wonderful surprise after another.”  
  
Ben exhales, “I wanted you, but I couldn’t have you cause there was another woman and it wasn’t right, but I just couldn’t drag myself away.”  
  
Leslie looks at her sheet, “And the first time we kissed?”  
  
“Perfect,” Ben says without reservation.  
  
She smirks a little, “I thought it was kinda ridiculously hot.”  
  
People laugh and Ben nods. The dam he’d built around every hope and wish springs a leak and he feels the energy of possibility carry him over.  
  
“And when I left you?”  
  
The flicker in Leslie’s eyes tells him she’s caught the way he worded that.  
  
“Confused. Hurt. Scared.”  
  
“Me too.”  
  
“Mostly, I just wanted you back. I didn’t care as long as you came back,” she says.  
  
“I know. I read about it.”  
  
She flushes a little and looks down, “Ah, the next question is what was your impression of me when you came back?”  
  
“I thought you were beautiful and strong. I thought you were bull headed and too independent and nothing scared me more than the thought of losing you or Ella.”  
  
“I was afraid I’d drive you away again.” She lets the microphone drop by her side after that and something in Ben aches. If he could turn back the clock…but he presses on.  
  
“The next question is about you as a mother and I,” his voice catches. He glances over at Ella who looks disinterested in the whole affair. She tosses whatever toy she’s playing with on the ground and Andy obediently bends to pick it up. Ben smiles a half smile, “there is no one else I’d choose to be the mother of my daughter. I hope every day that she turns out like you - brave, bright, and sure of herself. I hope she learns how to love like you do. And I know you will do everything to give her,” Ben licks his lips, “a family, a community of people that love her and love each other. And I’m so grateful for that.”  
  
Leslie is surveying him now, taking him in, and he can see she is making her mind up about something. He hopes she can see it - the change in him.  
  
“Ben, you’re not your father,” she says it and it catches him off guard. He can feel everyone’s eyes pressing into him and he locks his jaw, but Leslie presses on despite his obvious discomfort, “you aren’t anything like your father. You are your own man. A kind, loving man who knows what loyalty means. You can be a dumb ass, but you are a good man.”  
  
Ben nods because he can’t find the words. He needs her to ask her last question so he can ask his.  
  
She licks her lips, reads the last question silently, and her mouth twitches, “Um,” she flushes, “Ben Wyatt, do you love me?”  
  
Something calms Ben. It’s not confidence or practice or anything approaching sanity. It is something much more solid. It is knowing that he has finally made his choice.  
  
“I do. I love you, Leslie Knope. I think I’ve loved you from the moment I met you, but it just took me a while to catch up. ”  
  
Someone claps and then another lets out a whistle, but Ben only has eyes for Leslie. She is smiling, clutching that microphone in both hands. Ann grips her elbow and says something that Ben guesses is close to, “Go to him,” but Ben has one last question.  
  
“We’re not done,” he says and it stops Leslie in her tracks. He’s walking toward her now, moving around the tables. People scoot their chairs back and Ben finds his path clear. He rounds the back of the head table and stops a foot from Leslie, “I have one last question to finish the game.”  
  
Leslie tips the microphone toward her, “Is there a winner in Twenty Questions?” She takes a step closer to him, “not much of a game if there isn’t a winner.”  
  
“Well, it matters how you answer the question.”  
  
“Then you should ask it. A girl can’t wait forever, you know.”  
  
“Maybe it’s good for her to wait a little while. Gives her chance to realize a few things.”  
  
“Like what?”  
  
Ben slips a hand into his pocket, “That she deserves a man who knows what he wants, not a boy who chases other people’s dreams,” His fingers slip around the cool metal and he pulls it out, sees her eyes grow wide, “Leslie Knope, I want to spend the rest of my life with you becoming the man you see in me. Let me. Marry me.”  
  
And Ella lets out a dissatisfied shriek.  
  
Her tears echo off the walls and Ben knows that cry. He could recognizes it from too many late nights getting her up for feedings. It’s the sound his daughter makes when she is lonely.  
  
Leslie covers her mouth, laughs, and mutters, “She’s gong to be a she-devil.”  
  
“But she’s our she-devil,” he grips her elbow and whispers it so only she can hear. Someone, April he thinks, hands him Ella and he turns back to Leslie who is holding her stomach, laughing, “Marry us. Me and her. Please, Leslie?”  
  
“Yes,” it bubbles out of her  and she is laughing, crying, and saying it over and over again, “Yes. Yes. Yes.”  
  
Andy whoops, Tom whistles, and there is a round of applause and somewhere in there Ben slips his mother’s engagement ring onto Leslie’s finger, a sapphire as blue as her eyes set amongst diamonds. Her hands wind around him and Ella and Ben kisses to her forehead, but when Leslie finds the curve of his neck she presses a private kiss there and Ben thinks his mother might have been right after all. Maybe they really would love him.  
  
 _  
_


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue

The morning of his tenth wedding anniversary, Ben Knope-Wyatt wakes up with the thought that he might be getting old.  
His lower back aches; Leslie is right - they really do need to upgrade their mattress to one of those sleep number beds. The rock Leslie likes to sleep on is slowly killing him or at the very least dragging his bones and muscles into old age. He’ll be happy to splurge a couple thousand as soon as they have a couple thousand. Leslie just doesn’t understand that the money deposited into their bank account is already gone: gone to bills and the college funds for the girls, to paying down their mortgage on the farm as fast as possible, and a healthy fifteen percent to their retirement.

What Leslie doesn’t know is that Ben has been skimming off the top each month for a while now - for a vacation, their first since Maggie was born three years ago, to Disney World this Christmas. The state senate will be on holiday recess and he’ll have a break between semesters. They’ll take the girls for a week - ride the rides and experience the magic - and then they’ll leave them with Marlene (who moved to Florida after her retirement) while he takes Leslie to the Bahamas for six lazy days of sand, surf, and hopefully sexy times. Lots of sexy times. Sexy times that aren’t interrupted by fevers and nightmares and Louisa’s anxiety attacks over her math quizzes. 

Ben lies there for a moment recalling the sexy times from last night. He’d been exhausted, but Leslie had insisted. It was the eve of their anniversary, she protested. How could he not want to remember it with sexy times?

Because he still had papers to grade and more than a dozen people coming over tomorrow for their anniversary dinner, that’s why. Because while Leslie still rose automatically at 5 a.m., still seemingly only needed four hours of sleep, Ben didn’t. He was getting old, remember? Sexy times meant a back ache and heavy eyelids in the morning when he dragged himself from bed at 7 a.m.

Of course he hadn’t said no. How could he? It’s Leslie. This the same Leslie who convinced him to host his own anniversary dinner because if they let Jenny and Ron do it it’d involve pig on a spigot. She’d convinced him to run her campaign for city council when they had had the most stubborn three year-old ever known to man and another one on the way. And a few years after that her lofty bid for state senator. That one had been a tougher sell. She was practically an unknown. It had been a grassroots campaign - them driving all over the district with Ella in the backseat learning to read - but they’d won. Of all the campaigns Ben had run in the last ten years, he was particularly proud of that one.

He is pretty sure Leslie is contemplating another one too. Not a bid for re-election, but something higher. He’d seen the gleam in her eye when they went to Indianapolis for the Governor’s ball last week. It hadn’t been the glamor or knocking elbows with bigwigs. Leslie was on a first name basis with most of those people anyway. No, it was because of a conversation she’d had with Kathy Ballard, a long time friend and fellow state senator, about the cuts in the Federal budget to the states for public education. She’d been scheming how to make up the difference in the car all the way home. But it wasn’t until a few days later that Ben really heard the words she used. Leslie had always been a verbal processor and sometimes she processed in circles. The change was subtle - instead of using we she’d used they. And if she wasn’t part of the we that meant she was imagining herself somewhere else - namely Washington - and that meant a run for the senate.

That’s why the vacation is so important. It is a one time rest stop on their steady ascent over the last ten years. Leslie’s ascent, really. But Ben is quick to remind himself what Leslie has said so many times: behind every powerful woman is a stronger, braver man. It is always them, the two of them, ever since that day at Chris and Ann’s wedding. A team. Together. A half of the same whole. That is the miracle Ben holds onto this morning. 

***

Ben gets out of bed because he can hear Ella taunting Louisa and that never ends well. Eleven year-old Ella recently discovered her sister’s extreme sensitivity and seized upon the chance to get whatever she wanted.

“Dad!” Louisa calls out at the sound of him in the upstairs hall. He rubs both eyes with his palms.

“You don’t have to give her whatever it is she wants.”

“Ella says she’s better at math than I am,” Louisa whines from the bottom of the stairs. Ben pauses. That one might be true.

“Remind her she’s had four more years to practice,” he mumbles as he looks in Maggie’s room. It is empty.

“Where’s your sister?” He asks as he comes in the living room. Ella sits cross legged on the couch playing on the iPad. Now the math comment makes sense. Louisa hovers by her sister, her arms crossed, and a bottom lip stuck out, “Ella, give your sister back the iPad. She needs to practice her math facts.”

“But she’s not any good at them. She said so herself!”

“Uh huh,” Louisa stomps her foot, “you tricked me. I said you were better cause you’re older.”

“And that means you’re the worst. What good is the iPad going to make?”

Ben swipes the iPad from his eldest daughter’s hands despite her outcry, exits the game she was playing, finds the math flashcard app, and hands it to Louisa. She grins and sticks her tongue out at Ella who is already tearing up. Ben really just wants coffee, but he stops Louisa with a hand on her shoulder and crouches down to her level.

“What have we talked about?”

She digs a bare toe into the carpet, “Not whining.”

“And?”

“Trying to work it out instead of getting so upset.”

“How could you have handled this differently?”

Ben looks over to Ella, who is hiding in the back couch cushions. Usually Louisa is the dramatic one, prone to falling apart the moment something didn’t go her way. Ella, somehow, had inherited a cool head. She reminded him of Jenny more and more every day: resilient and a force to be reckoned with. She got her way because she charmed everyone around her.

Louisa is anxious to hide in her room with her math facts, “Not let her rile me up.”

He can’t help but smile at the word rile. That is a Leslie word. He kisses her head and swats her butt as she hurries toward the stairs. He is left with an unusually upset Ella.

“Where is your sister?” He repeats his earlier question as he sits down next to Ella’s hunched up knees. Her head is buried in the cushions and all he can make of it is her long blond hair. He curls a strand around his finger, but she swats it away and Ben makes his move. He catches her stomach and tickles her right in the spot he knows she hates.

“Stop it!” She jerks, laughs, and remembers she’s supposed to be mad and frowns, “I hate it. Stop it,” she is laughing now, kicking limbs and trying to catch her breath. Ben pulls her up onto his lap and she squirms, “Mom said it’s my body and no one can touch me without my permission.”

Ben sighs and loosens his grip. Ella scrambles away and hides behind a pillow. He looks at her sideways. They both know the phrase was a cop-out. It is a mantra Leslie bore into Ella at the beginning of the summer when she asked, shyly, for a two-piece rather than her usual one piece swimsuit. To Leslie, that signaled the onslaught of puberty and makeup and boys.

She’d mourned the death of her oldest daughter's childhood, though Ben thought that was a bit over dramatic. Ella just wanted a way to look different than her sisters. She could care less about all that stuff Leslie worried about; she still built blanket forts and hoped to grow up to be a wizard like Harry Potter. But Leslie was determined to chart the best possible path for her daughters toward womanhood. And that path began with Gal Days.

Gal Days were days out doing awesome things with your gals. Leslie instituted the first one with Ella, herself, Ann, and Jenny. They took her to Indianapolis to see a play, shopped for fancy dresses, and ate out at Ella’s first “grown up restaurant.” And on the drive home, Aunt Ann gave Ella her very first talk about bodies which Leslie followed up with the mantra “It’s your body. No one can touch you, change you, or put you down unless you let them.”

Ben doubts she meant tickle fights from your dad, but he knew it was important to respect those boundaries now. Ella is figuring herself out, finding her voice, and he wants to do everything he can to encourage that.

“Where’s your sister?” he asks it for a third time.

“Mom took Gidget to the grocery store.”

Ben rubs the bridge of his nose.

Gidget is another Leslie creation, nickname for their youngest daughter. He’s not completely sold on the idea, but the girls have run with it. His three year-old sweet baby answers to it and he has to admit the name matches his affable, happy daughter. 

“Ella, what’s wrong?” She concentrates on the ends of her hair, twisting it around her fingers and letting it come unfurled. Ben tips his eyebrows up, “Ella?”

“Is Louisa smarter than me?”

“What? Why would you think that?”

“Cause you said so to Mom the other night,” her chin wavers, “I was supposed to be in bed, but I couldn’t sleep so I got up for a snack and I heard you say it to Mom.” She digs into the cushions again as the tears come hard and fast now.

Ben pulls his eldest onto his lap and lets her head fall into the bend of his neck. He recollects many nights spent with her like this, pressed close to his chest, their hearts on the same beat.

“Ella Ann,” he kisses her part, “what on earth did I say to ever make you think that?”

“You said Louisa was like you…good with numbers and facts…and I just had spunk. I didn’t have to work at life because life would come easy to me cause everyone likes me. But Louisa…she had a lot of potential if she worked hard,” she sits up and looks at Ben, “And I don’t want spunk. I want to be smart and work hard cause you and Mom work hard. Mom says it is hard work that is the most important and I want to be important.”

Ben sighs. He should be thankful for daughters who are driven, who valued things like hard work and intelligence. It meant he and Leslie might be doing something right. But he can’t lie - the anxiety worries him. In Louisa it is practically paralyzing. They had spent many nights holding her, rocking her, and coaching her breathing back into control. In second grade, her first homework assignment resulted in a trip to urgent care because they couldn’t get her crying to stop. She had been so worried about disappointing them and her teacher with wrong answers. In Ella, the anxiety is more hidden. Unlike Louisa, Ella hid her self-doubt in confidence. The more scared she was the more loud and outgoing she became. Be recognized his human disaster tendencies in Louisa, but Ella was all Leslie. She ran a hundred miles an hour, put on elaborate productions, and generally steamrolled everyone around her. The internal pressure to achieve was probably a given (though Maggie is only three, he and Leslie suspect she might turn out to be the most easy-going, laid back of their children) since they were he and Leslie’s offspring, but as their father Ben wishes he could take the weight off their tiny shoulders. He wants them to know that from him and Leslie the love would always be unconditional and that their family was a safe place to just be.

But he doesn’t say all of this to Ella. She is eleven, after all. He files it away to talk to Leslie about later.

“Ella,” he looks at her, “you are the smartest. You are strong and beautiful and intelligent. And spunky - but that is a good thing. I’m sorry you heard that and thought I meant something bad by it. You can work as hard as you want in life, but I love you just as you are. I remember the first time I saw you - it was like my life suddenly had this new path. It was you and your mother. Even though I had just met you I knew you were perfect for us.” Ben finishes with a smile and Ella grins through her tear streaked face.

They both hear the back door and Ella is up and out of his lap before Ben can even press a kiss to her forehead.

She got there before Ben did and she screeched, “Uncle Ron!”

In the kitchen, Ron is struggling to hoist several large wrapped packages through the door.

“What is it?” Ella hops from foot to foot.

“The finest cuts of pork and beef from Toothy’s Butcher,” Ron said. He brought in a whole crate full of smaller packages and Ben knows what these are: smaller cuts of bacon and sausage, liver, and tongue. 

“Um, this really is kind of you Ron,” Ben swallows, “but does Leslie know about it?”

His brother-in-law shakes his head, “No.”

“Well, I think we had the menu all figured out - breakfast for dinner,” Ben wants to stop Ella who is helping her uncle stack containers of baked beans, canned vegetables, and mashed potatoes on the kitchen table. She hands him a pumpkin and he just stands there, holding it, “ Leslie’s at the store right now. Chris and Ann are bringing a couple quiches and we’re going to make waffles. Really, I don’t think Leslie is going to like this.”

“This was her idea,” Ron still,s “This isn’t for tonight. It’s for tomorrow.”

Ben coughs, “Tomorrow?”

“Leslie said the party was a weekend event. Jenny is packing the kids’ bags now.”

“To do what?”

“Stay here. Leslie invited everyone to bunk down. I told her no. I do not like to sleep on other people’s property in case they want to stay at mine someday, but Leslie promised me whittling would be an event in the tournament.”

Ben pinches the bridge of his nose, “Tournament?”

“The family tournament. Dodgeball. Crafts. Capture the flag. Three legged races. I don’t remember everything from the invitation, but I figure a healthy competition is good for the Swansons so I promised her we’d be here.”

There hadn’t been an invitation. Not that Ben had seen. It was supposed to be a quiet anniversary dinner party with Ron & Jenny, Ann & Chris, Andy & April, Donna, Tom & Lucy, Jerry, and the second generation of the Parks Department. Ben had wanted to just go out to dinner in Indianapolis, but Leslie had convinced him because she said she would reign it in. The affair would be simple and easy. Their most important people around them. Obviously he and Leslie had different definitions of reign it in.

But now wasn’t the time. He nodded, “Oh, yeah the invitation. I forgot. Here,” he hands Ella the pumpkin, “I’ve got to go check and make sure we’ve changed the sheets on the beds.”

He does the math as he goes upstairs. Ron and Jenny will sleep in a tent and Ben knows Henry David will join them. He’s pretty sure Mara, and maybe even Jenny will sneak in to sleep on something not the ground. Ella’s best friend, Laurel Traeger, will sleep with Ella, but Ben guesses 5 year-old Chris Jr. will crawl into bed with his parents. He’ll put Tom and Lucy in the furthest spare room. They are newly weds after all. Of course Donna would get the canopy bed. It is her favorite. And Ben is pretty sure Jerry will stay. Since Gail died last year, he’d been lonelier. He’d taken to stopping by the farm for dinner and while he always managed to spill something, Ben appreciated him. They talked sometimes about what it meant to be the father of three girls.

Ben shudders to think what the Ludgate-Dwyer clan is going to do this time. Last time they stayed with Ben and Leslie, when their house flooded, one of them burned down one of the old barns on their property. Leslie had been mortified, but Ben was kind of thankful cause it meant he wouldn’t have to clear the delapidated structure.

The farm, as everyone called it, was another one of Leslie’s ideas. When they had found out Leslie was pregnant with Maggie they realized her three bedroom bungalow was going to be too small. Ben suggested a modest upgrade to one of the new suburbs on the rim of Pawnee, but Leslie refused. She wasn’t going to live in the suburbs, on streets named Stardust and Champion. She found the farm - ten acres - right on the limit of Pawnee. She would still have her Pawnee address, but they could raise their girls in the fresh air.

There was a lake (Ben really thinks it is a pond, but Leslie likes to call it a lake) and woods and a lot of old buildings from when it actually was a working farm. They even have two miniature horses (Ben learned his lesson a long time ago) named Lil’ and Sebastian. The house itself was larger - much larger than they needed - but also derelict when they bought it. With the help of their friends over that first summer they refinished floors, fixed the plumbing, and put in new windows. They built a dock and bought a row boat. Ron even fashioned a sign for the front of their drive: The Knope-Wyatt Farm. 

It was everything Leslie could possibly want. They were further from downtown, but that was what cars were for, right? She took her Pawnee Goddesses troop camping in the backyard, taught Rec classes on fishing on their lake, and took the girls on nature hikes. She spent quite a bit of time traveling around her district and to the state capitol, but she came home Ben could see the joy seep across her face when they met her on the front porch. She’d whirl each girl around and listen to them as they tugged her inside to show off art projects and plays they’d come up with. But always - before she stepped over that threshold - she paused to kiss Ben, lightly, and whisper “I’m glad to be home,” in his ear.

Somewhere along the way Ben fell in love with the old house. When he isn’t advising campaigns most of his days were spent at home. The classes he teaches at the local university center on local government, finance, and political campaigns, and it wasn’t unheard of for him to hold classes at the house. His homemade calzones and Leslie’s massive document gallery wall thrilled his students to no end.

But he loved the house because it allowed him to cultivate his attention to detail and order: the period fireplace mantle he installed and the freezer stocked with meals. He got to do all of it with their daughters: plant a garden and harvest its fruit, build a stage in the barn so they could put on shows for Lil’ and Sebastian. He got to do it with Leslie.

The house became a tangible testament of them, of what they could accomplish together. The Harvest Festivals and campaigns were broad, far reaching, accomplishments, but to create a home for their daughters, to welcome friends and strangers alike, went deeper. Ben had read once that black holes hum a b-flat 57 octives below middle C. He likes that image - that the universe strikes different notes. He likes the believe that their home hums a note - he’s not sure which one - but whatever it is it would be pretty. It would be humble and beautiful and deep.

But at this point he’s really thinking about the number of beds, pull out couches, and sleeping bags. He’s so lost in thought as he climbs the stairs into the attic that he doesn’t see it at first.

“Holy shit!” He jumps at least two feet in the air.

In the center of their dusty, rambling attic is a Batman suit.

Ben approaches and find a note attached with his name on it. It is in Leslie’s handwriting.

Ben,

I had all these plans for my life. I had it mapped out: my revolution of Pawnee’s municipal code, my valiant leadership when the raccoons revolted, and subsequent launch onto the national stage. I was going to run for president, solve Israeli-Palestinian relations, and be the first woman on the moon all by now. But none of that has happened.

You happened. Our family happened. The best family in America, possibly the world. I do not know what I did to deserve you or our daughters, but every day I wake up next to you and know it all started when you walked into the Parks department with that sour puss look on your face and threatened to take away everything I love.* And you did - with you went a lot of dreams I had, but I don’t have any regrets because you were the introduction to this happily-ever-after I’ve fallen into. You cut away the frothy, girlhood fantasies and left the real, hard reality of love and friendship, of hope and laughter. Those things are as real as waffles and miniature horses. They are just as real and just as wonderful.

So happy anniversary my state auditor with an adorable face. You do so much for us that I wanted you to treat yourself. I know you’ve always coveted this suit and I know it is completely pointless, but that is the point.**

You are my best friend.*** I love you.

Leslie

*I know you are thinking right now that isn’t exactly how it happened, but let’s go with that version okay?

**I may have also bought a less cool batman costume for myself and later in the darkness of night we might be able to vanquish some things together. DO NOT SHOW THAT TO ANYONE!

***For the official record, Ann is still my best friend forever. I am glad you understand that there are sacred categories of friendship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Henry David Swanson was named after the libertarian philosopher Henry David Thoreau. Mara Swanson's full name is Tamara after Ron’s mom, but Jenny refuses to call her Tammy. Henry David and Mara are both adopted since Jenny can’t have children. They are brother and sister and were adopted from Panama as toddlers. They are 10 & 8\. Ron still runs the Parks department and has never really replaced Leslie. Jenny continues to paint, teach piano, and take every day as a gift she never expected.
> 
> *Laurel and Chris Jr.: Laurel is named from Ann’s favorite Lifetime movie, Mother, May I Sleep with Danger?, and is just eleven months younger than Ella, a fact the two girls hold onto. They are inseparable and their friendship delights their mothers to no end. Chris Jr. is obviously named after his father, but tends to take after Jenny. Chris has found an eager work out partner in any of the Ludgate-Dwyer boys who have more energy than is good for them.
> 
> *Ludgate-Dwyer Clan: Five boys named Barnabas, Casper, Homer, Grover, and Roscoe. Andy named all of them. Barnabas was named after his father randomly stuck his finger on a name in the name book Leslie bought them. Casper was named for the ghost because that is awesome. Homer was named for Homer Simpson because the show was on when they did it and made him. Grover was named for the Sesame Street character because that is awesome. And Roscoe…well Andy wanted to call him Rocky Rococo, but April intervened and Roscoe was the compromise. April thinks all of the names are awesome because people think they’re weird. It’s good because she spends a lot of time yelling the names. She works from home as a social media consultant. Ben is pretty sure its not a real job. She just wanted to be able to text all day, but she does an awesome job on all of Leslie’s campaigns so he keeps hiring her. Andy works for a battered women’s shelter where his greatest accomplishment was getting some of his co-workers into WWE.
> 
> *Tom and Lucy married after a lot of missed opportunities. They are busy doing it when Tom isn’t running a surprisingly successful E720 with Jean-Ralphio.
> 
> *Donna is still using them and losing them. Still driving her Benz and completely happy.
> 
> *Jerry took a hard hit when Gail died, but he is enjoying retirement by reading mystery novels on Ben and Leslie’s dock and enjoying his grandchildren.
> 
> *Louisa Jane Knope-Wyatt was named for Louisa May Alcott, a women before her time.
> 
> *Ben got to name Margaret Bernice which is why he is hesitant to go with Gidget even though it is the perfect nick name. He named her after his mother and father’s mother. He finally made peace with his father right after Maggie’s birth.


End file.
